The New World Saga Arc One: Let there be Darkness
by TheDeviantKnight
Summary: Pan is the Champion of Hoenn; he's the best of the best. But when he's thrust into Unova and can't get a Trainer's license, he's forced to become a spy. But before long Pan and his team have to go up against a team of criminals like no other -Team Plasma. And along the way, he uncovers a shocking truth about himself...and now it's not just about himself -it's about the world. OCs.
1. Chapter One: A Guide

**-a/n-**

**This is the first chapter of the first arc-y thing-y of the New World Saga. Since this chapter, I have progressed quite a bit, and the work you see here is not nearly up to snuff.**

**That being said, enjoy.**

**-TDK**

"Cowards. You simply don't want to lose, is that right? You're scared of a little bet?" The shadows smiled, a thousand mouths laughing at the shadows' taunting.

"That would be logical, yes. Era, I have no interest in making any sort of bet with you. Not now, and not ever. I would rather allow this land to be torn apart and fought ever for the rest of time than risk having the peace we have all," the levitating being did not pause, merely gracefully waving a hand towards the majestic birds which stood behind it, "worked so very hard to bring about. I will not force you to leave, but I daresay you will want to be doing better things with your time than being here."

The shadows frowned. "So be it. I will wait, and when you are not the only god-"

Here the shadows were interrupted by the harsh cawing of one of the birds, which flapped its huge, powerful wings to ensure it was a good deal higher than the shadows, sparks flying from it as it did so. "God?! Have you not the capacity for memory in that pitiful, shared brain of yours? We are not gods; we are spoken of in legends, talked of in voices of awe in myths, yes, but we are not gods."

"You are immortal, are you not?" The shadows questioned, not seeming to care of the slight on their intelligence.

"As are you, and you will never be a god -Or have you forgotten so quickly, Era?" The second bird spoke, beating its wings to gain altitude, flames flying from its eternally burning body and quickly dissipating.

The shadows roared in frustration, drawing in on themselves and winking out of existence.

The third bird was not so arrogant as to presume that being higher up gave it an advantage over its fellow legends; it merely shuffled slightly in place, and spoke calmly. "What do you suppose it was going to say?"

"The shadows are eternal, my friends, and I daresay they will be happy to wait until another region comes about where they can make their infernal bet. But that is neither here nor there." The levitating being turned to the birds, its endless eyes twinkling. "You had best return to your dominions."

It was a clear dismissal, yet, as the birds flew off, they couldn't help but feel a sense of foreboding. It might not happen for thousands of years, but sure enough, the shadows would return...

"We refuse," the great, pale being said, its voice whale song.

The shadows hissed. "Why? Scared of a little bet? Afraid to lose?"

"Why, of course we are afraid to lose." The pale being turned gracefully to the seven behind it; three were birds, familiar with the shadows, three beasts, newly created by a majestic phoenix, which raised the tip of a wing slightly at the suggestion of losing the shadows' bet. "Are we not, my friends?"

"Of course."

"Indeed."

"How could we lose?" One of the beasts spoke up, its fur as blue as crystal, padding forwards. "We-"

"That is neither here nor there," The phoenix snapped angrily. "Get out of our sight, shadow."

The shadows smirked, its thousands of eyes boring deep into the eyes of the north wind, who turned its head questioningly, yet remained firmly where it was. Its faces swelled with frustration, and it collapsed in on itself, disappearing.

"Your proposition is interesting," The great emerald being mused, turning in mid-air to face its fellow legends. "What think you?"

"I have no faith whatsoever in the scum that currently populate our lands." The titan of ruby gnashed its teeth angrily. "Otherwise, I would take you up on your bet in a second."

"I would not be so sure. So many have conquered our images; indeed, some have captured and controlled them." The sapphire leviathan slowly turned its heads to the others.

"Pah!" The titan spit magma to one side. "Mere images, nothing more!"

"Yet still, no mean feat." The emerald being shook its head. "No, shadow, we will not take you up on your offer."

"What if your trainers were more competent?" The shadows questioned, hardly able to control itself; this was the closest it had been to success in eons.

"Perhaps."

The shadows smiled enigmatically. "Very well." And then they dissipated.

"No. I will not make deals with your kinds." The majestic being's presence would have crushed and defeated anything that could be hurt or had emotion -Yet the shadows did not.

The shadows sighed. "Perhaps you will not..." Its eyes shifted to the dragons on either side of the being.

The diamond dragon snorted disparagingly, turning away. The dragon of pearl flexed its arms threateningly, yet did not step forwards. And yet, uncharacteristically, the shadows did not gnash their teeth, or roar in frustration. They merely smirked, and were gone.

For its appointment in the land commonly referred to as Sinnoh had not been its only meeting that day...No, it had recently been to the dimension-traveling being's home, and while it had not accepted, as after all, the terms were not applicable in its own twisted worlds, it had told the shadows of a place, far, far away, where the presence of the legends thus far had not yet reached.

A place of fresh minds, a land to newly corrupt, a region that would not know of its intention and would be innocently trusting...

...A land called Unova.

The shadows arrived gleefully; it had taken quite some time for the new region to show any signs of human life, yet it had been well worth the wait.

"A betrayal here, some plotting there, and voila!" The shadows murmured to themselves. It had easily split the legends of the region, murmuring about ideals and truth, and while the shadows had been interested only in setting up the bet, its many mouths split in glee as it imagined what fun its employers would have in the region, and what would become of its efforts.

As the black and white dragons had characteristically refused to meet each other, the only legend to set up the terms of the bet had been the gray one, the icy one; the devourer, the ancient people of Unova called it.

"Let us review the terms of the bet once more." The monstrous, mechanical being writhed in glee before composing itself; it would not do to have the gray legend refuse the bet at this time.

"One young person, having proven their skill, will be chosen by us to be your champion," the being of forests began, its voice like bark and branch over leaves, a soft, yet sinister rustling.

"To attempt to become the Champion of Unova," the being of lava continued.

"While following the stated rules:" The being of aqua stopped, for this was the important part of the bet; the rules. "If any of his or her pets fail, they can no longer follow him or her, and will lose any semblance of intelligence, as punishment for being weak enough to fail."

"The young man or woman may obtain just one pet from each location in Unova; throwing lesser beings at a greater foe with no end of supply is not skill, it is a war of attrition." The being of air spun excitedly, hardly able to control itself.

"In addition, the young man or woman will receive a guide, to explain the rules of the bet, at the beginning of his or her journey, as well as a new pet after overcoming every gym leader, the entirety of the Elite Four, and the Champion, to compensate for any losses," the being of earth continued, its voice like the sliding of two great boulders against each other.

"He or she will also be given a new rule to follow after all of the abovementioned incidents, so as to keep them on their toes." The shadows finished with a maniacal glee on each of its faces; after eons and eons of planning, their greatest victory was soon to be at hand.

"I agree," the devourer said, its impassive face not betraying its true excitement; here, at last, was a proper challenge!

"Then let it be done. The bet will begin as soon as is possible." The beings, their work done, evaporated.

"They did what?!" The diamond dragon roared furiously, time distorting before the force of the soundwaves. "The idiots!"

"We should just let them lose their region for their stupidity!" The dragon of pearl slashed space in anger; of course, they would do no such thing. If one region fell, it would be but years before their own fell as well.

"Hm...Clearly, the first step is to pick the representative..." The blue elf sitting calmly on one of the pillars in the Hall of Origin seemed to have not even heard the dragons of diamond and pearl.

"They must be quite powerful, and useful early on..." The golden pixie levitating just behind the majestic creator's left flank did a quick flip in mid-air, before turning to the third of the lake guardians, a blue spirit that was meditating on the floor of the hall. "What do you think?"

"Hm." The blue spirit shook its head from side to side, a sign that it was not yet ready to contribute to the discussion. Meanwhile, the greatest of the golems rose up from its titanic throne.

"It should be able to change at some point," the continent-puller rumbled, "Not simply through evolution, but also through our champion's decision."

"I agree." The core of Stark Mountain said nothing more, but left.

The sea guardians twirled around in each other, the true legend speaking after a pregnant pause. "I would assume, at this point, that we are, of course, all thinking of the same person?"

The answer came back, unsurprisingly, the same.

"The Illusions."

The home of the Illusions was a large, dense forest of river, streams, and mountains.

Of course, the Illusions weaved their potent illusion magic over the forest, causing it to appear as a small grove to humans. It was behind this grove that many of the Illusions had once dwelled; in time, though, loss of habitat and frequent warring with the other residents of Unova had driven down the species.

The small, hedgehog-like creature scampered through the dark forest, moving surprisingly fast for a Pokemon its size. Its underside, arms, and legs were a blissful, pure white, its back covered with green fur that gave it the appearance of a moving shrub. Usually, it sported a pair of vibrant Gracidea on either side of its head, but it had opted in favor of leaving them in its flowery home, for stealth purposes.

The Shaymin ran all throughout the night, pausing only occasionally for drinks of water or to inspect a particularly beautiful flower; time was of the essence, and the forest was massive. As day rose, however, it stopped, plucking a Gracidea and smelling the flower. As it did so, a startling transformation overcame it; the green fur on its back was shifted atop its head as its body grew rather dramatically, its legs elongating and also developing their own fur, and its ears growing exponentially.

The reindeer-like creature tossed its head magnificently, the ears on its head proving to double as wings; the Shaymin flapped its ears, the wind rushing up into the drums and filling the ears like sails. Now a few feet above the ear, the Shaymin pointed its head towards the mountain which was its destination, and wind pushed it onwards, looking for all the world like a reindeer with sails attached to it.

After just a few minutes of flying, it alighted upon the base of the mountain, for it had seen what it was looking for; one of the Illusions.

A small, fox-like creature, its fur a mix between charcoal and slate gray, with reddish paws, appeared from the darkness, its eyes alight with mischief. Its triangular ears perked up as it saw the Shaymin, running forwards. As it did so, the whorled scruff of fur on its head came into better view; it looked like the tip of a paintbrush had been dipped into the same paint used to die its paws and paint its eyelids, then glued atop its head. Its neck surrounded by a ruff of darker fur, its tail bushy and clearly well-kept; not a living being who didn't know what it could do could have guessed its potential for causing chaos.

"I accept your offer," The Zorua burst out eagerly. "I just need a way-"

"To the town called Nuvema?" The Shaymin smiled gratefully; it hadn't wanted to have to persuade one of its dearest friends into such a task. "Don't worry, you can hop on my back."

And the Zorua did indeed, preparing itself and then springing on top of the Shaymin's back; at first its paws seemed about to slip off, but he scrabbled for a purchase, found it in the Shaymin's pure-white fur, and leapt aboard, looking like a captain about to go on his maiden voyage.

"Ready?" The Shaymin smirked teasingly; the first time Shadow had flown on her back, he'd turned a violent shade of green, though in time, Shadow had come to enjoy it; he was looking eager now.

Shadow stuck out his tongue. "Ready as I'll ever be, Flora!"

And with that, the two were off; Flora sprang into the air, her magnificent wings filling with air and carrying them towards their destination: Nuvema Town.

As Flora flew over the landscape, wings allowing her to deftly maneuver the air currents like a captain controlling his ship, Shadow began to review his plan in his head.

Alright, he thought. First of all, he had to prepare to take on the appearance of one of the starters of the Unova region; Flora had told him everything that she knew. The Shirnios, an ancient and conventionally evil race, had made a bet with Kyurem, the icy dragon incarnation of wuji, one of the legends of Unova. They would choose a champion who had proven his worth in other regions, and put him through an extremely hard challenge. If he won, the Shirnios would stop the activity of Team Plasma in Unova, who were dead-set on releasing trainers from their Pokemon. However, if he lost, and Shadow couldn't help but think that he probably would, they would be given free reign over Unova. The Shirnios would, through their ancient powers, put the mind of the champion into the body of Black, the young man who was supposed to be taking the League Challenge.

From there, it was up to him; Shadow would have to take the form of one of the starters from the Unova region, explain the details of the bet to the boy, as well as give the boy a random starter from any of the regions, and then leave.

At least, that was what he was supposed to do; a contented smile crept over Shadow's face as he thought of the plan he had devised. Though...he couldn't help but feel as though he was doing something wrong; while the Illusions had always been taught to use their abilities only for good, he was clearly about to break that rule. He dismissed the thought, though; what had to be done had to be done, as his mother had always said. Instead, he focused on reviewing his plan.

After taking the appearance of one of the starters, he would have to be quick on his feet, and defeat it, taking its place in the gift box. The Shirnios would undoubtedly be trying to keep the champion from waking up, so he'd have to create an external illusion of the boy picking him, and then continue the illusion until the boy woke up -whenever that could be. When the boy did wake up, Shadow would have to manage his own illusion, the external illusion, and explain and argue with the boy at the same time; no mean feat. Afterwards, he would give the boy his 'real' starter, and then stay with the boy for as long as he needed to.

Shadow had been practicing his illusory skills for hours on end; while projecting an internal illusion, external illusion, and using influential techniques at the same time wasn't even expected for matured Zoroark, he was confident he'd be able to pull it off -and with ease, at that.

His musings were interrupted by Flora. Shadow's ears perked up, and he uncurled himself, faking a yawn -though Flora was one of his dearest friends outside of the forest, she couldn't know even the slightest bit about his plans.

"What was that?" Shadow asked, feigning sleepiness.

"I said, we're reaching Nuvema Town!" Flora tossed her head excitedly. "Just look down at it! Isn't it tiny?!"

Shadow had to agree with Flora there; compared to the bustling metropolis that was Castelia City, Nuvema Town may as well have been a village! There was just one main road; a boulevard, with shops on both sides, that opened out into the Nuvema Town Harbor on one end, and Route One on the other. The town seemed to be split down the middle via the boulevard; three roads cut the boulevard into thirds, each road leading into a culdesac of three houses, other than the road that was closest to the Nuvema Town Harbor, which led to some sort of laboratory.

"What's that lab called?" Shadow asked, wrinkling his red eyebrows.

"Oh, that's the lab of a human called Professor Juniper," Flora explained. "She studies Pokemon, and gives out the starters for this region to young boys and girls when they become ten."

"Ah, right, Professor Juniper." Shadow returned to inspecting the town; beside the harbor was a large airport and airport tower. Wracking his brain, Shadow remembered that, had the boy who the Shirnios had chosen decided to come to Unova from whatever region he'd been in, he would have arrived at. Those weren't of massive importance, though; his target was the house of Black, where the starters were due to be delivered.

"Well Shadow, this is where you get off," Flora said as they landed. Shadow jumped off of her back and quickly shook himself off; beads of condensation had collected in his fur during the flight. "I'll be back to pick you up in two hours, alright?"

"Alright! See you soon, Flora!" Shadow's facade almost broke as he watched one of his best friends fly away, knowing fully well that he'd never see her -or anyone else from the forest, for that matter- again. He shook his head, focusing on the matter at hand, and looked around.

Black's house was next to the house of the other two children getting their Pokemon that day; a young man named Cheren, and a young woman named Bianca. And sure enough, there was a blue-and-white striped gift box in front of Black's house, with a green ribbon on top. Before inspecting the box, Shadow stood back slightly, to see the house in its entirety; it would be useful to know the look of it exactly in the future.

It was a small two-story affair, with a large, triangular blue roof, and a blue overhang above the modest wooden door, the knocker a simple Pokeball. Next to the house was a blue mailbox, and on the right side of the door, a window, the shutters pulled down. Above the door, Shadow could see a window, this one wide open, and he cursed the Shirnios for their sloppiness, which, undoubtedly, was on purpose.

He nudged open the lid of the box, and examined the notes under each Pokeball; there was Oshawott, Snivy, and Tepig. After some deliberation, he grasped the Pokeball containing Oshawott, and clicked it, releasing the otter, which was still sleeping.

Before it could react, Shadow took on its shape, running and jumping at the befuddled Water-type, who had just enough time to squeal briefly before he knocked it out, dragging it behind a bush. With luck, nobody would find it for quite some time. He then concentrated his mind, imagining that he was just the tip of a needle, and, maintaining this focus, managed to get himself into the Pokeball without much trouble, breathing a sigh of relief inside it.

The inside of a Pokeball was rather strange; the Pokemon that entered it via a trainer's command were supposedly transported to some sort of forest in the middle of that region. However, Shadow had entered the Pokeball of his own free will, and so was merely stuck inside of his own mind; he also didn't intend to ever be inside a Pokeball again, so he doubted it would ever happen to him.

After waiting for what seemed like ages, he finally heard the opening of a door, and excited squeals as the box was carried up the stairs.

**-a/n-**

**In case you have no idea who Shadow is, he's a Zorua. And this is Unova. Remember to review!**

**-TDK**


	2. Chapter Two: A Champion

"Have I ever told you that I'll never get tired of this?!" Pan yelled with glee, squeezing an enormous, bipedal, orange dragon-like Pokemon with a thick, tapering tail that for some unknown reason, always burned with a small flame. The Pokemon, nicknamed Flame, had large claws, a long neck, and two fleshy horns protruding from the back of its head, as well as large bat-like wings, their front teal, horns protruding from the tip of the wings where a bat's talons would be.

"C'mon Flame, I've got a need fa speed!" Pan shouted, mimicking a Sootopolian accent as he squeezed Flame's sides with his legs. Much like on a horse, it was an oft-used signal from Pan that told Flame to go faster.

The fiery lizard snorted, tossing its head to one side and opening its mouth to spit out a glob of fire, which was quickly torn apart by the wind. Pan scowled, noticing that his Charizard was blatantly not going any faster than it had been previously. All thoughts of his enjoyment of their flight, though, was cast from his mind, as he noticed a dark patch of water that definitely hadn't been there before.

Pan grasped onto Flame's sides firmly with his thighs, and moved the sleeve of his Champion's Jacket to see his PokeNav. As he had thought, they were on Route 134, having departed from Pacifidlog Town with promises of bringing back fish for the villagers, who were experiencing a lack of business due to the recent League Challenge being opened in the new region -its name was Under or Unown or something like that. Pan wracked his brains for what could possibly be under the sea. He'd already dove into the sea further towards Slateport, which led to the Sealed Chamber, but other than that...

"Flame!" Pan shouted, leaning closer to his Charizard's ears so as to be heard over the rushing wind. "D'ya see that dark patch of water down there?"

Flame roared, understanding, and started descending, tucking in his body slightly to make a less aerodynamic shape and tilting downwards, heading for the strangely dark patch in the sea. Pan dropped his arm to the familiar, oft-opened Pokeballs at his waist, preparing to return Flame to his Pokeball and release Torrent, his Tentacruel.

They drew closer and closer to the sea, and when they were just thirty or so meters above the surface, Pan opened Flame's Pokeball, containing the massive lizard in ways that he didn't fully understand, and simultaneously released the catch on Torrent's Pokeball. As the Pokeball opened with a flash and Torrent started to drop towards the sea, Pan forced himself into a spread-eagle position, fingers scrabbling to activate the parachute that he always carried in his backpack.

Giving a mental sigh of relief as the chute opened and he was jerked upwards, Pan yelled towards Torrent: "We're gonna dive down there and see what's goin' on!" Torrent, a massive, blue jellyfish-like Pokemon with two large red, crystalline spheres where her ears should have been and two beak-like appendages containing seventy-nine tentacles, as well as her lower body, nodded her 'head' slightly, splashing into the water and stretching tentacles upwards for him. When Pan was close enough, she grabbed him from the air, seating him firmly on her back.

Used to this routine, Pan shook his head, smiling sadly as he put on his diving helmet; he'd found Torrent in the base of the now-disbanded Team Aqua, beaten and chained. From the records next to her, he'd realized that they had been forcing her to mate with a Ditto to produce more Pokemon for Team Aqua, all of which were then taken from her as soon as they were born and often killed during training, due to the stupidity of the Grunts. She was the 'mother figure' of his team, protecting them all under her tentacles, to compensate for not having been able to protect her children.

As Torrent dived underwater, though, Pan felt a strange sensation overcoming him; he thrashed around blindly, but while his diving helmet was on, water was flooding in, taking over his world. He fought madly to overcome the water, swimming as hard as he could upwards, but it was no use; the water was seemingly flooding into his eyeballs and distorting his vision, because the light filtering in from overhead suddenly seemed nowhere near what it had been when they'd entered the water; the top of the water was also covered with a thin layer of ice, which he easily broke through, fetching up on what seemed to be...The dock of a busy harbor?!

Looking around wildly, Pan felt a sinking sensation in his stomach; he was not surrounded by peaceful sea and the occasional rocky outcropping, but a bustling harbor, full of shiphands loading cargo onto massive steamliners, with what looked like strange, golem-like greenish creatures helping them. He tried to focus, but his brain, refusing to accept that he was no longer in Hoenn but some strange, other region where the climate was colder...Much colder, actually...So cold, really, that he needed a jacket.

Pan frowned deliriously, his head nodding to one side and hitting a wood plank as he wondered why he had set out without a Pokemon, or for that matter, swim trunks...He loved to go to the beach, after all, and as he slid into the water, unconscious, the one, usually cool and calculated part of his brain that went into overdrive during battles, synapses firing as he relayed thoughts and orders to his Pokemon, the one part of his brain that he could always count on, simply gave up, and stopped working.

The harbor was busy, and nobody saw the strange boy, outfitted for a much warmer region of the world, come out of the water in a harbor where nobody was allowed to swim, hit his head on the side of a wood plank where wood had been replaced with steel and iron decades before, and then slide back into water which should have been just a few feet deep.

* * *

He was drifting, Pan realized, drifting through space, massless, weightless, and timeless, towards a bright light.

Instinctively, as all creatures who have ever heard accounts of people being near-death and seeing lights do, he foolishly attempted to swim backwards. Of course, he did not have mass or weight with which to influence the strange currents that were pulling something, presumably his soul, to what Pan assumed was his death. He tried frantically, but in the end, was close to accepting his death, and starting to wonder whether or not he had left the sprinklers on, when he heard a voice.

_Pan..._

You have to wake up, Pan...

You can't sleep, Pan...

Irrationally, he attempted to respond to whatever the strange voice was, stubbornly thinking that yes, he could in fact, sleep, and that he wasn't going to wake up just because there was a strange voice telling him to.

_Pan...A world is at stake here..._

Well, whoever is gambling is pretty bad then,

he thought.

_Pan...They want to kill you, Pan...They want to end your adventure, your story, your life, right here and now...Are you going to let them do that, Pan?  
_  
_I fully understand that you are appealing to my sense of justice and attempting to make me angry so that I wake up,_ he thought, annoyed. _I did take that course at Lilycove College on psychology._

_Argh!_

Though he obviously couldn't see whatever was arguing with him, Pan had the strangest feeling that it was throwing up its arms in exasperation, just as he usually did, and stopped being what some people might have called 'annoying'._ Alright, so how do I wake up?_

_Well, all you needed to do was mentally open your mind to the concept of waking up. I have been controlling your body for about a minute, so I will give you control in three...two...  
_  
Wait, WHAT?! Cont-

_One..._

* * *

Pan felt himself falling...falling...falling...

...And then he was rudely interrupted by a rather high-pitched, nasal voice.

"I can't believe Bianca isn't here, Pan!" The voice continued, coming from behind him.

With oft-practiced ease, Pan instinctively grabbed where he was guessing the unknown voice's shoulder would be, then crouched down while pulling, throwing the person, presumably female, over his shoulder and into the ground.

"Ouch!" The boy, as the voice did belong to a boy, squealed. "What did you do that for? That really hurt!" The boy screwed up his face, and Pan was reminded vaguely of a large, spoiled toddler screaming for chocolate.

"Sorry," Pan mumbled, inspecting the boy. He was wearing a pair of black leggings...Or were they jeans? Fascinated, Pan almost reached a hand out to touch them, but forced himself to focus. The whiny boy was also wearing some sort of sneaker, which instead of being practical and hard-wearing, came up barely to the boy's ankle in the back, and showed socks in the front. The leggings, Pan noted, also had a belt which a white v-neck shirt tucked into; the shirt in question had a large, orange Y on the front, though it was almost covered by a blue jacket, which was opened, and was apparently too small for the boy. His hairstyle was also questionable; his orange-nosed no-frame glasses clashed terribly with his black hair, which was unevenly parted at the front, and on the sides, developed into shorter and shorter bangs, with a lick of hair standing up.

All in all, the boy looked incredibly stupid.

As the boy was presumably about to start bawling, Pan heard footsteps on the stairs, and turned just in time to see an extremely strange girl arrive.

"Oops!" The girl, presumably the oft-late Bianca, squealed as she came into the room.

"Bianca, where were you?" Complained the whiny boy. "Me and Pan've been up here for like an hourrrrr!"

"Sorry Pan, sorry Cheren!" Bianca smiled. "I was a little bit...caught up." Pan noticed that as she said this, a shadow fell across her face, and his eyes flew to the red hand-shaped mark on her cheek. Domestic violence? Pan's eyebrows knitted together as he considered this. His eyebrows knitted together even more as he considered the fact that two complete strangers knew his name...The voice was going to have to provide some answers.

"Hoooonestly, Bianca," The snot-nosed Cheren drawled, smirking. "I've known for ten years that you have no sense of time, but today's the day we get our Pokemon from Professor Juniper!" He reached a hand up to ruffle his hair, and Pan noticed that Bianca automatically flinched, cringing.

_The plot thickens,_ Pan thought. _So she has issues with domestic violence, and now this boy, presumably one of the boy's -whose body I am inhabiting- appears to also have a history of violence with her..._

As Bianca walked into the room proper, Pan got a better glimpse of her; she was wearing an old-fashioned white dress with puffed sleeves and a hem that came up to her knees, as well as yellow slippers, a pair of orange stockings, and an orange blouse over the dress. Her blonde hair, unevenly chopped, was squashed under a large mushroom-cap like green hat, with a large white stripe running through it. A green handbag was on her right hip, the strap on her left shoulder. As he noticed her bright, twinkling blue eyes, his stomach did a flip -though he categorized it as the emotions of the boy whose body he was in, (and it felt very weird to think about that) because he definitely was not attracted to Bianca- and he stood up hurriedly.

"Oh wow..." Bianca breathed, all thoughts except those relating to Pokemon banished from her mind as she walked towards the table. Pan took this silence to look around the room. There wasn't much in it; just a bed, a television, a desk with a large computer on top of it, a closet full of clothes, and the table which the gift box was currently on top of.

"Sorry?" Pan came back to reality, realizing that Bianca had asked him a question.

Bianca smiled at him, and his stomach flipped again. "I said that you should get first choice, of course."

Cheren screwed up his face, and Pan instantly felt a surge of dislike towards him. "Why does Pan get to go first?" He asked petulantly, and Pan mentally snorted, flaring his nostrils. As if the brat wasn't just going to choose the Pokemon with a definite type advantage over whichever one he chose! Though, of course, he was only going along with this strange situation thus far to get some sort of answers out of the mysterious voice.

"Well, it's his house, isn't it?" Bianca reasoned, winking at Pan out of the corner of her eye. Pan, forcing a smile, winked back, realizing that Cheren's demeanor was a running joke between Bianca and the Boy -which was what Pan had decided to mentally refer to him as, having thought of him thus far as 'this guy'- though her flinching seemed to contradict that.

Cheren said nothing, but grimaced. Pan rolled his eyes, opening the blue-and-white gift box.

Inside were three Pokeballs, nestled on a bed of velvet, three notes underneath them. On the first, there was written in cursive, "The Grass-Type Pokemon, Snivy!" with a cartoonish drawing of a smug-looking snake underneath it. The second said "The Water-Type Pokemon, Oshawott!" accompanied by a drawing of an otter. The last showed "The Fire-Type Pokemon, Tepig!" and underneath was a happy-looking pig.

He sighed; Grass-type Pokemon were always at a severe disadvantage, owing to the lack of usable moves. Fire-type Pokemon seemed to always become dual Fire-Fighting types -or at least, that was what Pan had heard, never having chosen a Fire-type starter Pokemon other than Flame- and Water-type Pokemon were simply all-around useful.

No doubt in his mind, Pan reached for the Pokeball containing 'Oshawott', and then retreated, motioning for Bianca to go next, who looked surprised but delighted. Looking at Cheren's expression, one of consternation, Pan realized that the Boy probably would not have done what he had just did, and frowned.

Bianca, meanwhile, had chosen some Pokeball -Pan hadn't noticed which one- and backed away, a brilliant glow upon her face. Pan's thoughts of how her hair would have felt -all, of course, by the Boy- were interrupted by Cheren's nasal voice.

"Fine! I wanted Snivy anyways." Pan glared at him; as he had predicted, Cheren had chosen the Pokemon with an obvious type advantage over his.

Bianca gasped. "Pan! We should battle!"

Pan raised an eyebrow; not only did he apparently have two rivals, but he had not yet seen any sort of Pokemon Professor, and now he was expected to battle in his own room?

To his immense dislike, Cheren voiced his thoughts. "Bianca, seriously. These Pokemon may be small, but they could tear up Pan's room!" Pan noted that his tone of voice made it seem as though the Boy's room being torn up wasn't the biggest tragedy that could ever happen.

Bianca shrugged off Cheren's comment with a smile. "Well, it's like you said; the small ones aren't very powerful! Besides, how are they going to get stronger if we don't let them fight?"

Pan smiled incredulously. "Bianca, you can't seriously-" It was no use; Bianca was already fiddling with her Pokeball. With a pang of misgivings, Pan coolly released the catch on his Pokeball in a sideswipe, one that released his Pokemon as well as returning the Pokeball to his belt.

The Pokeball flashed, lighting up the faces of Cheren and Bianca; Pan realized that the Boy certainly wouldn't have released his Pokemon with such practiced grace, and cursed himself inwardly. All thoughts of this, however, were driven from his mind when the Pokeball opened, revealing a strange creature.

The "Oshawott" was some sort of bipedal sea otter-like Pokémon, covered with shades of blue and white. It had a round, white head with small, triangular dark blue ears on the sides. Its eyes were large and dark; its ovalish nose dark orange. For some reason, it also had what seemed like the beginning of whiskers on its cheeks, and the light blue fur on its torso formed a bubbly collar around its neck. Its light-blue torso was also decorated some sort of pale yellow seashell embedded into its belly. Searching his mind, Pan remembered that this appendage was called a scalchop, and could be used as a weapon or otherwise. Its white, furless arms ended in digitless stubs, with its feet -having toes, unlike its arms- being dark blue, and looking like paws. The Oshawott also had a flat, paddle-shaped dark blue tail.

It turned around to face him, and suddenly, time seemed to slow down, and it morphed, into another, stranger creature.

A rather small fox-like creature, with reddish paws and grayish fur, stepped away from the now motionless Oshawott. It had triangular ears, and a strange, whorled scruff of fur on its head; it looked like the tip of a paintbrush had been dipped into the same paint used to die its paws and paint its eyelids, then glued atop its head. The creature's neck was surrounded by a ruff of darker fur, and it possessed a bushy, gleaming tail.

"What are you?" Pan burst out before he knew what was going on.

The fox-like thing shook its head quickly, padding towards him. "Do I sound familiar?" He asked, for the voice was clearly male, and Pan frowned. The Pokemon's voice was familiar but somewhere, but where...

...Pan gasped as he realized what it was.

"You're that voice!" He exclaimed.

"Yes, I am indeed 'that voice' better known as Shadow, the Zorua." The thing -_Shadow,_Pan mentally corrected himself- said dryly.

Pan shook his head in disbelief. "Whatever," he muttered. "I just want some answers. What's going on?! Where am I, and where are my Pokemon?! I want out, now!" Pan finished with stomping his foot on the ground rather hard; he was fully aware that he was acting childish, but he felt as though he had a right to.

Shadow waited for a few seconds after Pan stopped talking, then tilted his head to one side, eyeing him with distaste. "Are you done?"

Pan looked at the floor. "Sorry," he said sheepishly.

Shadow snorted, bringing Pan's attention back to him. "Well then, allow me to explain things to you, and for starters, you aren't going anywhere."

**-a/n-**

**Oooh myssssteeeerious. Review please!**

**-TDK**


	3. Chapter Three: A Story

**-a/n-**

**In this chapter, Shadow tells a story. Please note that this story is completely wrong in the overarching plot, and only serves to let you know just how little Shadow actually knows.**

**-TDK**

Pan gaped at the strange creature -a Zorua, he mentally corrected himself, whatever that was- which had just told him that he wouldn't be going home anytime soon.

"What d'you mean, I'm not going back home anytime soon?!" He asked, furious. Pan crossed his arms and sat down, fully prepared to listen to whatever Shadow was going to say and then flatly disagree. Then, something struck him, and he sat up again

Shadow raised an eyebrow as Pan sat up, but said nothing, laying down on all fours and beginning to calmly lick his paws.

"Hold on, how can I even hear you?" Pan's eyebrows furrowed together; he doubted that it was because he had let Shadow into his mind, because he had been much closer with Flame, who he had never understood.

Shadow rolled his eyes. "You can now hear any Pokemon; because I was given the task of explaining things to you, I was gifted with the power to make you humans understand us Pokemon." Pan was about to open his mouth to ask another question, but stopped at Shadow's expression. "Now, let me just start explaining."

Pan sank back down into a cross-legged position, as they were seemingly plunged into an endless void. He sat up immediately with a yelp.

"Sit, sit," Shadow muttered, making himself comfortable. "In order for you to truly understand what you are doing, we must go back to the beginning of time..."

"How are you doing this?" Pan interrupted. "Is this another power you were 'given'?"

Shadow growled at him. "No," he said testily. "I am an Illusion, the name given to members of the Zorua or Zoroark species. We have the power to project external and internal illusions. For example, I can morph into any Pokemon I desire, or give the appearance that I am a human, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. I am currently projecting the illusion that we are in an endless void; in reality, we are just in your room."

Pan was not satisfied; in fact, he was wanting to ask a question that had been on his mind for quite a while. "Whose body am I inhabiting right now? And what does it look like, because after all, I can't see myse-"

"I understand, I understand." Shadow twitched his head slightly, causing a life-sized model to appear. "This is the boy whose body you are inhabiting; his name is Hilbert."

Pan looked closely at the body; it was that of an averagely tall boy, with chocolate-brown eyes and well-kept hair. Hilbert wore black khakhi pants, tucked into practical red running shoes. The pants were secured with a belt, and a blue jacket, slightly open, covered his black shirt. Like Bianca, Hilbert had a bag slung from his left shoulder to his right hip; however, this strap was thicker, and the bag itself was light blue with a white stripe. Atop his head was a red cap, a black Pokeball on the front.

Pan snorted disparagingly. "Hilbert?!" He shook his head in exasperation, as if to say "What a name".

"The other choice was Black." Shadow's mouth twitched slightly. "Now, if you'd rather I referred to you as 'Black' in public..."

"No, no," Pan muttered, annoyed. "Fine; continue."

"Very well," Shadow said, and the body disappeared, replaced with the black void oncemore. "Now, at the beginning of time...

_There was nothing but empty space, as far as the eye could see. Then, in one of the great nebulae of dust and gas, a world began to form. One moment, each particle was separate, and the next, revolution! Two of the particles had hit each other, forming a new, larger particle. Many moments passed, and when it seemed as though particles would drift endlessly, without contact, BAM! The larger particle had simultaneously hit two other particles, in the middle of joining. The result was a new, much larger particle, and the other particles began to feel themselves drawn towards it. Slowly, yet surely, the particles drifter towards the much larger particle, eventually hitting it, being absorbed into it, and helping bring their fellows to it as well._

_Finally, years later, the much larger particle was now the size of a small region, and ready to begin the next part of its life; somewhere deep within the star, where the Old Particles lay, something new, something radical, something different was happening. The particles were not bonding, or connecting, as they had many times before within the star, but fusing. _

_And as the first pair of particles fused, a great shockwave rippled throughout the particle, referred to as The Particle._

_And then, it began to burn. Oh, it was a slow process at first; hundreds of particles had to be fused in order to give off the required energy, but eventually the energy heated up the rest of The Particle, and voila! Fire was born._

_The Particle burned for trillions upon trillions of years, yet one day, it simply...had no more to burn. All of the original particles were gone, fused together, and it had no more to burn. The Particle, however, was not satisfied with a trillion years of its adulthood, and then old age: It wanted more._

_So it began fusing the byproducts of fusing, into heavier and more dense particles. And as it did so, The Particle _

_expanded..._

_And expanded..._

_And expanded..._

_Until finally, it was a hundred thousand times as large as it had been previously; it was burning red, and a giant. But alas, it did not last long -just a million years or less. For while The Particle valiantly fused and fused, resulting in heavier, denser particles and more, more expansion, it reached a particle that it could not fuse._

_And at that, The Particle collapsed in on itself, each and every particle simply breaking under the force of its mysterious pull; and when each particle was at the center, The Particle exploded._

_The supernova was immense and beautiful, and in the supernova, the first life was born. As the explosion traveled outwards, through distances that it would have taken even light itself decades to travel, it spread the seeds of life; bacteria was born, and started to evolve._

_However, when The Particle exploded, one thing, one creature, one Pokemon was created at the center of the explosion._

_That Pokemon was the Creator, the Old One. _

_From the swirling dust around it, the creator solidified many particles, packing the carbon so densely that it was transformed into diamond; and thus, the diamond dragon was born, whose soul itself was packed so densely that nothing could escape, not even light. And due to this black hole that was the soul of the diamond, where distance was meaningless, time also became meaningless -and thus, the diamond was given dominance over time._

_From the cool gases that flowed around it and the diamond dragon, the majestic being brought into being a dragon of pearl. And its soul was but nothing; not even gas, not even light, just a substance of negative mass. And with that negative mass, it was able to travel however it wanted to; the dragon of pearl had complete and utter control of space._

_Lastly, from nothing but the space around it, the majestic being cut out a slice of the world, opening a frame into another world itself. And in this world, made solely of antimatter, the being un-made many antiparticles. The empty nothingness that resulted resolved itself into a nothingness, sole being of antimatter._

_And yet...there was something else that was...not created, not born; it simply was. It is possible that it existed even before the being, or that it existed before The Particle. However, just as the being created nothingness, it emerged, from what had not existed before: Shadows._

_Its appearance has never been solidly verified; what is known is that it can take on any form it pleases. Thus, it is possible that when it revealed itself to the four, it was simply that: formless. However, what is known is that it did not utter a word. It merely revealed itself from the shadows, perhaps enjoying, perhaps hating the looks of the four Pokemon. _

_Then, it simply disappeared._

_Shaken, the being told the pearl and diamond to create the world itself, for as they spoke, a new particle was emerging. If they did nothing, it would follow the path of The Particle. _

_However, they did; the pearl, the diamond, the nothingness, and the creator combined their powers. The pearl and diamond shaped the land as the creator brought it into being, giving the land mountains and rivers and savannahs and forests. The nothingness, however, attacked the land, striking great gashes in the land, which would later become valleys and trenches and craters._

_As punishment for its behavior, the creator banished the nothingness, to the world from which it had came, which it to this day rules. When the land had been completed, the diamond and pearl retreated to their own worlds, and lay to rest. _

_However, the work of the creator was not done; it created many powerful and awe-inspiring creatures; the ruby titan, the sapphire leviathan, the emerald dragon, the birds of fire, ice, and thunder, the ancestor, the pale one, the phoenix, the beasts of fire, water, and thunder, and many others besides. These beings were to rule and oversee the many regions of the yet-newborn world, and so they did. And for many years, the only species was that of the ancestor. _

_Yet in time, they died out, having absorbed parts of the world and giving way to other species. And these species bred, and intermingled, and the world was happy._

_And then...your kind came. Yes, 'came'. Your kind, the human, did not exist in the world; nothing alives knows how you came into being, but you did. Your species built civilizations, driving the Pokemon into the wild, and angering the legends of the world, those beings which the creator itself had created._

_Your scientists discovered the last living ancestor, other than the original ancestor, and forced it to mate, giving rise to not another psychic, but the psycho, the killer, the abomination. It was this abomination that wreaked havoc among the region you call 'Kanto' before it was calmed and locked away, in a desolate cave, by the original ancestor._

_Your species continued to commit such atrocities for centuries, each one having to be corrected by a legend. Thus, the legends were named, though in reality they have no names, and labeled. Many of your kind wanted to catch and obtain them, and so the legends created false images of themselves, to rule and fight in their places, and then slipped into an eternally deep slumber..._

_...Until the battling started. Your kind had used Pokemon for manual labor and other such tasks before, but it was not until just a century or so ago that your kind decided to catch and train Pokemon, for the purpose of battling. The League Challenge was set up, and the social system of the region of Kanto became based on Pokemon._

_However, not every person had such 'good'-and when I say good I mean in a relative sense; obviously everything your kind was doing was horrible and abusive, but this was worse- intentions. Teams of villains began to come into the picture, those who wanted to abuse Pokemon and use them to take over the world. They stole Pokemon and killed them, killed 'trainers' and wrecked cities. The fight against them was hard, and as you undoubtedly know, it continues even today._

_And thus, the shadows awoke once more. They went to the legends of the only region thus far which had adopted battling, i.e. Kanto, and offered them a deal: The shadows were immensely powerful, and could easily finish the villainous teams, on one condition. This condition was that one champion, of the shadows choice, would have to take on a challenge of the choice of the shadows. If the champion succeeded, the shadows would remove the villainous teams. However, if the champion did not succeed, the shadows would be able to un-make the very region of Kanto itself, returning it to nothingness._

_The legends refused, of course, and the shadows went on their way. Then another region, Johto, adopted the league challenge, and the shadows made the same offer to them. The legends of Johto refused, and so did the legends of the next region, Hoenn._

_After many more years, the region of Sinnoh, where the creator, the nothingness, the diamond, and the pearl lay at rest, adopted battling, and the shadows went to that region, and made the offer. While the diamond, pearl, and creator met with the shadow, and refused, the nothingness, still bitter from being imprisoned all those years ago, told the shadows of a new region, far, far away, where the legends knew nothing of the shadows, and would most definitely accept._

_So the shadows came there -or, more appropriately, here, and offered the legends of this region the deal. However, the main rulers of this region were, at this time, divided, and so the shadows met with only a malevolent, destructive, devouring legend, who agreed._

_And thus...they chose you. You are that champion; if you succeed in this challenge, you will restore this region. Yet if you fail, or refuse to undertake this challenge, the whole of Unova, this region, will fall._

"Any questions?" Shadow finished, the room restored to its former state.

Pan was speechless; he, take the fate of an entire region on his shoulders? "No," he said flatly. "I'm not doing it; this 'challenge' as you call it is probably impossible, and I could die!"

Shadow smiled thinly. "Oh, I daresay you'll be quite good at it. After all, the challenge is that you have to defeat the League of this region."

Pan stared blankly at Shadow, before laughing. When he was done, Pan wiped a tear from his eye, still shaking slightly with laughter. "Oh, that's rich," he chortled.

Shadow looked at Pan blankly, one reddish eyebrow raised. "Why is this funny?"

"Well, it's easy," Pan said blankly. "Sure, I'll do it."

Shadow smiled thinly; the boy had undoubtedly assumed that the challenge would be just to defeat the League. Oh, if only it were that simple...

"So you agree, then?" Shadow asked, eyebrow still raised.

"Yup." Pan nodded his head, looking eager to start.

"No matter what." Shadow confirmed.

"No matter what."

"Excellent! Then you won't have problems with any of the following rules-" Shadow was cut off by Pan.

"Wait, what rule-"

"First and foremost, your Pokemon will die." At this, Pan nodded; among trainers, there were two different kinds of battles. The first, the most common, with most trainers, was a fainting battle, where Pokemon would battle until the Trainer deemed that their Pokemon could battle no longer. The second, with wild Pokemon and Gym Leaders, etc. was a to death battle, where the Pokemon battled until they died.

"Secondly, you may only catch the first wild Pokemon you see in a route; after all, it would not show skill for you to simply throw Pokemon after Pokemon at the league, and eventually win, now would it?" Pan opened and closed his mouth like a fish.

"Thirdly, I am your guide. I will give you another starter from one of the regions after we are alone." At this, Pan raised an eyebrow, seemingly resigned, yet Shadow knew better.

"Fourth, after each Gym, the defeat of the villainous team in Unova, and the defeat of the League, you will obtain a new member of your team, as well as a new rule." Shadow looked up at Pan, expecting him to fly into a rage or flatly refuse; he was prepared.

"Alright, sure." Pan shrugged, then straightened, his eyes alight. "When do I start?!"

Shadow stared at Pan with disbelief. Surely..."Are you quite sure you understand the rules?" Shadow began tentatively.

Pan flapped a hand at Shadow. "Yes, yes, now let's go!"

Shadow shook his head slightly, preparing to take down the illusion. Perhaps, just perhaps...Not only would he be able to fulfill his quest, but the human might just be able to succeed.

With new hope in his mind, Shadow took down the illusion, and the battle began.

**-a/n-**

**First battle is incoming! Also, this infodump was baaaasically pointless and I'm sorry for that. Review!**

**-TDK**


	4. Chapter Four: A Family

**-a/n-**

**This battle scene is awful. Please don't judge me for it. (also here you go LastWinged, first follower title. You have my eternal gratitude, and let it be known that I've already done hundreds of pages of this and that I will never give up until people stop reading. Kinda like Dumbledore, but with more Pokemon.)**

**-TDK**

Pan's mind switched into overdrive as he took in the situation; while Shadow had been working his illusion magics, time had progressed. Admittedly, it had progressed very slowly, but it had progressed; Bianca's Pokemon was now right in front of Shadow...and what a strange Pokemon it was.

The 'Tepig' was a primarily orange piglet-looking creature, with short stubs of legs and a rust-red nose. Its tail was coiled, with an orb-like rust-red attachment at the end of it, which burned like fire. As Pan absorbed this information, the Tepig readied itself to attack.

All his trainer career, Pan had ordered his Pokemon to attack, dodge and otherwise move about with verbal commands, and he was prepared to do the exact same thing with Shadow. As a result, he was extremely surprised when Shadow, instead, spoke to him.

"There's no need to shout," Shadow thought at him -for Pan had a feeling that Shadow was projecting his thoughts directly into Pan's mind, as the small Zorua's lips were not moving, nor were Cheren, Bianca, or the Tepig surprised at a Pokemon talking- quickly. "This is one of my powers; any of your Pokemon can be commanded by you telepathically. However, I doubt there will be any need to, as we can think for ourselves; the Pokeball merely limits that ability to think. So, in order for you to be able to get a relative idea of my skill with illusions, you can simply keep your mouth shut."

"But won't Cheren and Bianca notice that I'm not even talking to you?" Pan thought, his face screwed up with the concentration that it no doubt took to transmit mental commands.

"You can stop concentrating so hard; as long as you think about talking to me and then say the words in your head, they will come to me. And no; it has undoubtedly been a long time since you were a novice trainer, but rookies don't yell commands. There is no need to, as their Pokemon do not have very diverse movepools; the Pokemon will simply act on instinct. The more experienced or advanced trainers become, the more skilled they will become at guiding their Pokemon."

Pan was taken aback; he had, in fact, completely forgotten about that. Shaking his head, he quickly settled himself into what he hoped was a fighting stance, and watched Shadow work his magic -for what a magic it was. (Note that when I write battle sequences, I write them from the 3rd person POV of the Pokemon battling.)

Bianca's Tepig lunged forward, no doubt predicting to land a blow on him, but Shadow had already dodged, shaking his head at the folly of these primitive Pokemon. Focusing his mind, Shadow's eyebrow twitched, as he put up an Illusion Wall, which would make it seem as though he and the Tepig were simply tackling each other. His eyes glowed purple as the wall came up, and the Tepig, squealing in fright as the purple screen came up behind it, attempted to escape.

Shadow smiled thinly, stalking forward like a cat about to pounce -there was no escape from him. His eyes glowed purple, as he performed one of the basics of Illusion: duplication. The shadow that he cast seemed to elongate and split, each shadow then peeling off of the ground to form a distorted, imperfect copy of himself. Shadow winced; the toll of various illusions was beginning to take its toll on him...he'd have to finish the battle quick.

The dozen Zorua lunged at the Tepig; the piglet squealed, frantically lunging at one of the copies as Shadow snuck up behind it. Unable to hold against the will of a living, breathing creature, as primitive as that creature was, the illusory Zorua shattered, but it was too late; Shadow karate-chopped one of its hind legs, spinning and kicking out with his own hind legs.

The Tepig felt a foreign presence on its right leg in the back and turned around quickly, only to get a powerful thrust of paws in its face. Tumbling end over end, it lay in a faint near its trainer.

Shadow, breathing quite hard, his brain drained from the exertion of the illusions, took down the Illusion Wall. If left unattended, it would simply continue to exist, sucking his energy as it did so. His legs buckled slightly, and he dimly felt footsteps on the ground, one triangle-shaped ear cupped to the floor as it was, and the sensation of a human's hands picking him up.

"Oh my gosh, oh my gosh!" Bianca squealed. "They both knocked each other out! Who wins?" She sprang up in down, kicking her legs up behind her and not seeming to care that her Tepig had fainted.

Cheren gave a long-suffering sigh, one which Pan barely heard. As soon as Shadow had fainted, he'd rushed towards the small creature, picking it up and shielding it in his body instinctively. He had no idea why; it was just an instinct hard-wired into him from generations of Trainers in his family. If all of your Pokemon fainted, you didn't ask question or anything, just paid your money to the winner and rushed to a Pokemon Center.

"Pan's Pokemon fainted last, so he wins." Cheren grimaced, snorting as though he wouldn't have lost to a Tepig. Pan caught the slight to Shadow, and stood up angrily, still holding the small fox-like creature in his jacket.

"Oh yeah?" He asked with a snarl. "Would you like to test out that theory?"

Trying to look cool and collected -and though Pan would never admit it, completely pulling it off- Cheren simply shrugged, as if to say "I stop only because of how crude you are."

"I am stopping only because I see that there is nothing to be gained by arguing with someone as uncivilized are yourself," Cheren hissed at Pan, eyes twinkling maliciously. "And you're going to get what's coming to you soon..."

And with that, he swept from the room.

Pan stared after Cheren for a second, bolt upright and an eyebrow cocked, then shrugged and stood up, brushing dust off of his pants. "So, uh...Where should we heal our Pokemon?" He asked an open-mouthed Bianca, trying to act as though he knew exactly where.

Bianca simply shook her head, seemingly amazed, and ran at him with a hug, kicking her feet up so that he was supporting her entire weight. They went down in a tumble, Shadow rolling off towards the side and getting up groggily.

"That was am-a-zing!" Bianca cried, rolling her eyes with each syllable of 'amazing'.

Pan picked himself and the giggling Bianca off of the ground with great difficulty, standing up. Bianca, instead of detaching herself from him, instead put her arms around his neck, staring into his eyes. His stomach felt as though it was running an Olympic race.

She stared up at him, eyes shining. "That was really brave of you," She said softly. "But he's going to be mad at you now."

Unable to stop his instincts -he was, after all, a teenage boy- Pan laughed, Hilbert's body wanting to impress Bianca. "I'm not scared of him," Pan said dismissively, picking up Shadow as well as Bianca's Tepig and turning towards Bianca. So, where do we get these two-" Here he jerked his head towards both of their Pokemon in turn, "Healed?"

Bianca threw her head back and laughed; Hilbert's eyes simply couldn't keep away from her throat, so Pan simply silenced her by gently pulling her arms off of his neck. "Downstairs, with your mom." Bianca sounded slightly put-out; Pan had no idea why, and as he left the room, quickly running down the steps, he missed the hurt expression on Bianca's face.

She watched Pan run down the stairs, admiring his slim build and remembering how he had stood up to Cheren. Blinking back tears, she shook her head firmly. "No!" She said furiously, walking across the room and walking down the oh-so-familiar stairs. "So what if he smells like sea water instead of cherries?" She quickly wiped the back of her manicured hand across her eyes, screwing them up until she was satisfied with their dryness, and then continuing back down.

"So what if he changed his soap?" She whispered to herself as she walked down the stairs. "You've liked him for years, and he's finally starting to notice you -get a grip on yourself and seize the opportunity!"

Bianca had been just ten when Pan had arrived in the back of a moving truck, moving into the house that Professor Cedric Juniper had just left. She had peeked out from behind her mailbox, watching in awe as he confronted Cheren, whom she had been afraid of all her life, with relative coolness. That, of course, hadn't lasted; Cheren had punched him square in the stomach and left.

With a glazed look on her face, Bianca slowly descended the stairs, reminiscing about six years spent playing with Pan, chasing each other around the town and traveling with their parents through Routes, playing with wild Pokemon and insulting Cheren behind his back. The latter events had to be done in secret, because if Cheren had discovered the two of them...

Bianca stopped on the bottom step, one slippered foot just barely touching the ground as she shuddered, imagining what would have happened. Before Pan had come, she'd made sure to stay out of Cheren's way as much as she could. While she was fairly fast, if Cheren caught her, he would usually kick, punch, and pinch her, something she already got far too much of at home. After Pan had came, though, Cheren had directed most of his malicious attention towards the newcomer. Not all of his abuse was physical, either; one of Cheren's favorite pastimes was telling Bianca, in great detail, how worthless she was.

However, through six years of a fast friendship with him, Bianca had never told Pan how she felt about him. Oh, she had expressed her feelings quite well -at least, she hoped she had- by going with Pan to the annual ball in Nimbasa City every year, flirting quite obviously with him for the past year, and even constantly presenting him with Luvdisc's Day cards. However, it had been only just then, after she had walked into Pan's house, nodding at his mother's proclamation that Cheren and he were waiting upstairs for her, and walked up the stairs that he had -seemingly, anyways- returned her feelings.

She could, of course, be wrong...But hadn't his eyes lingered on her more than usual? Hadn't he bravely stood up to Cheren? Deep in thought, Bianca hardly noticed when she stubbed her toe against a step.

As Bianca reached the bottom of Pan's carpeted staircase, she slid forwards, enjoying the feel of the hardwood on her feet through her slippers, but came to a stop at the sight of Pan and his mother healing their Pokemon. At this sight, she ran forwards, stopping, slightly flushed, in front of the table where Pan's mother was checking the Pokemon over.

Pan looked up from Shadow with a tense expression, seeing Bianca running up towards the table, chest heaving, and rolled his eyes. She hadn't seemed to care when her Tepig had fainted; why pretend to care now? Instead, he turned his attention towards Hilbert's mothers' diagnosis.

She was quite a pretty woman, wearing a white shirt, the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, and blue jeans. Her eyes were the same shade of blue as Hilbert's eyes, and her chocolate-brown hair framed her long face, with a bun done up behind her head and the excess hair going down to about her shoulders. Hilbert's mother -he obviously hadn't asked her her name, as that was definitely going to blow his cover- was currently leaning over their Pokemon, her hair covering her face.

Expecting the worst, Pan was extremely surprised when she simply lifted her head from the table, tucking a strand of hair into the blue hairband that kept her hair from falling over her eyes. "All better!" She proclaimed, clapping him on the shoulder and grabbing a few food items from the bags behind her.

"Wait, really?" Pan cried, sagging with relief.

"Oh my gosh!" Bianca squealed, jumping up and down while clapping her hands. "Thanks!" Hugging his mother, she ran quickly towards the door, pausing only to turn and yell at Pan: "Don't forget, we have to go to Professor Juniper's lab now!" With a last, parting wave good-bye, she was off.

"So-o," His mother said in a businesslike fashion, gathering the food into a bag and tying off the end before presenting it to him. Pan took it, of course, slightly stunned; his mother, luckily, did not notice, clapping her hands together to get crumbs off of them and then turning towards the sink and picking up a glass, as well as a towel, before turning towards him.

"Er...yes?" Pan asked finally, realizing that she was wiping the glass while waiting for him to talk.

"Well, what's going on between you and Bianca?" She asked quickly, abandoning all pretense of cleaning the glass and leaning backwards, resting her palms on the countertop.

"I don't know what you mean," Pan countered quickly before wincing. There was obviously something between Bianca and Hilbert; had he blown his cover? Scarcely daring to look, he opened an eyelid a fraction to catch a glimpse of his mother shrugging and turning back to the dishes; an obvious dismissal.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Pan walked out of the house, stopping only to pick Shadow up from the table and nestle the small creature safely in his arms, and looked down at the Zorua as he turned the corner. Miraculously, he'd been healed in the few brief seconds that Pan's mother had leaned over him, and Pan took the bag of food his mother had given him, stopping on the sidewalk towards an old shed to open it.

The bag was full of small, muffin-shaped food items, with a note, written in cursive ink: "Pan, I'm sure you know what these are for. Give two of them a day in the amounts. -Mom." Just as he was contemplating the note, he heard a scream.

**-a/n-**

**Ooh, screaming? Cliffhangers? Just another day in the world of Unova. Review!**

**-TDK**


	5. Chapter Five: A Rejection

**-a/n-**

**That whole thing with Bianca's mom serves basically no purpose. It is a forgotten plot point.**

**-TDK**

Instincts kicking in, adrenaline pumping through his veins, Pan whirled around, Shadow dropping down by his side with a snarl.

"What's that?!" He thought quickly, circling for any threats.

Shadow frowned, quickly firing off a few Illusion-detection pulses in all directions, then baring his teeth when all of them turned up negative. "I have no idea..."

The scream came towards them again, this time shriller, followed by sobbing noises and choking sounds. Pan ground his teeth together as he looked around hopelessly, realizing that he wasn't going to figure this out with his eyes. Closing both his eyes and his mind to the outside world, he sank within himself, and when the next scream came, he knew where it was coming from.

"Over there!" He thought, slipping silently towards an old gardening shed, Shadow padding softly behind him. A few feet from the door, Pan paused; it would do no good to reveal himself and be captured as well, and he observed the scene.

The shed had no windows, and was made out of hard concrete. There was a layer of dust around the entire building, the only dustless area being a small half-moon in front of the door. Pan's eyes narrowed; he was missing something...there should have been footsteps leading up to the shed. A back entrance, perhaps? He motioned towards the corner of the shed with his rights hand, creeping forwards and placing an ear against the wall.

"Please-please don't hurt me," came a choked voice that Pan definitely recognized. His eyes widened; it was Bianca! "Pl-please?"

He frowned; her tone was that of resigned reluctance. He knew that tone; he'd seen it in the victims of the Tri-Island-Triad, which had operated a system of extortion throughout the Orange Archipelago. At first, those who the gangsters had blackmailed and threatened had been angry and vengeful. As time grew by, though, they had gradually lost hope, and their voices had become like Bianca's was currently; without any hope that they would be saved. Clearly, this was not an isolated case; whoever was in there with Bianca had done this before.

Clearly, he had been thinking of Shadow, because the small Zorua spoke into his mind.

"That doesn't add up," the voice came. "Otherwise, why would she scream? From any sort of regular bully or thug, that would just bring additional violence."

"She could be getting hurt," Pan argued back.

"Not a chance; she said 'please don't hurt me' not 'please stop hurting me' or even 'stop'. She's screaming out of fright, perhaps, though she isn't screaming to be let go."

Pan considered this, his mind going through various possibilities at once. "So the person in there isn't hurting her, while she isn't new to that person being cruel, this particular thing has never happened to her, suggesting that something recent will have happened to have caused this new violence. Shadow-"

"No major events happen around this time of year other than Nuvema Town sending out its prospective trainers." Shadow shook his head in disgust; there was no need to voice what he and Pan were thinking. They had finished circling the shed, and there was, as Pan had suspected, a door on the other side, this one with a semicircle of non-dust around the door as well as footsteps leading from the other direction, and what looked like a snake's trails, but two right next to each other.

Pan tried the doorknob; it was open. He thought quickly; the person had clearly walked up to the shed, unlocked it -or perhaps it had already been open- and then attacked Bianca, dragging her to the shed. He looked at Shadow for confirmation, and the small fox nodded; Bianca was now simply whimpering slightly.

Cool, collected hatred coming to boil in his mind, Pan kicked open the door -and saw what he had suspected all along.

There stood Cheren, in all of his horrid glory, who turned around with a shocked, slightly fearful expression.

In a split second, Pan analyzed the situation; Bianca's face was already starting to fill up with grateful tears, her orange hat lying on the floor of the shed. She was bound to a lawnmower with a length of what looked like extension cable, and from the blouse which Cheren had obviously been trying to tear off, Pan could guess the boy's intentions. His anger turned into a cold fury, and he dashed towards Cheren immediately.

"Pan, stop!" Expecting Cheren to shout, or kick, or flail, Pan was shocked when Bianca shouted. "I know what it looks like," she took in breath hurriedly, "But Cheren has been trying to free me!"

"That's-that's right!" Cheren babbled nervously, backing away. As much as Pan would have liked to believe Cheren -i.e. not at all- he noticed that the blue-jacketed teenager's right hand was edging towards his pocket, which undoubtedly contained his Pokeball.

"Alright." Pan leaned on one of the walls, Shadow hiding behind him. "I'm listening."

Bianca attempted to wipe her face with the back of her hand, not realizing that she was still bond. At this, Pan and Cheren simultaneously reached towards Bianca, to untie her cords, Cheren standing back with caution and letting Pan pull the orange extension cord off of the lawnmower.

As soon as Pan had stepped away, Bianca flexed her hands, breathing a sigh of relief as blood flowed back into them, making them creamy white once more. As Cheren looking at Pan apprehensively, she wiped away tears. While Bianca flattened out the creases in her dress, put her hat back on top of her head, and made herself presentable, Pan glared at Cheren, hoping to crack him under the pressure without having to interrogate Bianca. He was expecting Bianca to be so frightened of Cheren that she didn't tell the truth, and instead claimed that she had wandered into the shed or some other story, but what she said was completely different.

"As you two know," Bianca said, taking in a deep breath, "My parents don't view my desire to become a Pokemon Trainer as practical. My dad, though, is much more accepting of it, though he would rather I stepped down his path, becoming an artist."

Pan knitted his brows; he could see where this was going, and it was extremely unlikely.

"My mother, however," and on 'mother' Bianca's voice broke, "is not as ready to allow me to become a Trainer." Bianca paused, moistening her lips, and launched back into her account. "After I left Pan's house, I went to my house. As soon as I entered, she gagged and bound me, carrying me here," she motioned around the shed, "and tying me to this lawnmower. She told me that nobody would find me, and- and-" Bianca was unable to continue, bursting into tears.

Stunned, Pan looked to Cheren for guidance, who began.

"Bianca's mother told her that she had forced you and I-" Cheren gestured between Pan and himself, "-to become friends with Bianca. She also said that she was going to tell Professor Juniper that Bianca had listened to her advice and decided to stay at home." He sighed, glancing at Bianca, who was now no longer sobbing, but white-faced and tight-lipped, standing bolt upright. Cheren shook his head, putting his hands into his jean pockets. "Bianca's family has been making plans to move to Nacrene City, so as soon as Professor Juniper left, they would move there, and Bianca would be forced to forego her dream of being a trainer, and be placed under house arrest until her mother was satisfied." Finishing, he crossed his arms over his chest, looking at Bianca with a pitying look.

Pan took several moments to reply, shocked and appaled as he was. "That's preposterous!" He said finally. "How could a mother do that to one of her children? It's...it's..." His voice failed, as he remembered the red marks on Bianca's neck. Refusing to accept it, he shook his head stubbornly, prepared to argue -yet Bianca interrupted.

"I know it's hard to accept, Pan." She balled up her hands into fists, sobbing angrily. "I just can't believe she'd do this! She never wanted me to be a trainer, but she was never violent about it!"

Startled, Pan interrupted. "Wait, what about those marks on your neck?"

Confused, Bianca took a small compact mirror out of her large green handbag, her expression becoming horrified when she viewed the marks on her neck. "Oh my god..." She said softly. "What on earth..."

"You don't remember anything happening that could have caused that?" Cheren asked abruptly. While the blue-jacketed teenager had often bullied Bianca, he would never have done it so that it would be visible...Her mother? Her father? Cheren's eyebrows furrowed as he considered the mystery.

Bianca shrugged. "But we'll just have to leave as soon as we can!" She stared up at Pan hopefully. "You'll come with me, right?"

"Er-" In truth, he had no desire to be chained to a silly girl while he could be taking on the League, but he didn't seem to have a choice. "Sure!" Pan said, mustering up as much enthusiasm as he could.

As they left the shed, Bianca squealed in excitement, babbling on and on about all the things she wanted to do once she had her own Pokemon. Cheren said nothing, but once or twice Pan was sure he saw the other Trainer looking pityingly at him. Honestly, though...he pitied himself. Why hadn't he spoken out, done something? Frustrated, Pan shook his head; he wasn't going to tag along with Bianca, end of story, and he was about to open his mouth to say so, when Shadow spoke up.

"Don't do it," the voice came. "There will come a time when you will be glad that you put up with her, and in any case, she will most likely want to go off on her own as well."

Pan frowned, thinking. "But she'll slow us down, won't she?"

"I doubt it...though, unfortunately, she will hinder us quite significantly as far as new team members go."

"What do you mean? There's no real issue with catching a Pokemon in front of Bianca; she might question that I catch only the first one, but-" here Shadow broke into his thoughts.

"Hardly. Many people in Unova catch only one Pokemon, so as to stop from overcatching, which can result in Pokemon not being able to sustain their habitat. You know of this, I trust?"

Pan nodded, more out of habit of talking orally than any real need to. "Yes." Without Pokemon constantly rebuilding and reshaping the wilderness, the human population would most likely have skyrocketed, expanding uncontrollably. As it was, the local Pokemon stopped people from building any more, thus restricting industrial growth and urban sprawl. It was a common issue among Trainers; if they caught too many Pokemon, the local Pokemon would die out -the view that most Trainers took. However, the selfish Trainers, the same kind that bought their Pokemon from massive auctions, simply didn't care. Personally, Pan disagreed with both; he always released Pokemon instead of boxing them, a habit that had left him in quite a few sticky situations before.

"Actually, it's quite different." Pan shivered; having something's -someone's, he corrected himself, for Shadow was clearly intelligent- someone's thoughts echoing around in his mind was slightly disturbing. However, he accepted that it was awfully convenient. "You see, in this region," Shadow's voice interrupted his thoughts, "You are given one Poke-Ticket at the entrance of every Route; you can catch as many Pokemon as you want, but you can only choose those which have been registered via Poke-Ticket. As a direct result, most Trainers, not feeling pressured into doing so, release the Pokemon that they do not register."

Pan raised an eyebrow as Cheren and Bianca continued talkking in low voices about the League Challenge, himself walking slightly behind them, as after all, he had no idea where they were going. In any case, the system sounded interesting, though...

"It does have its flaws." Shadow had voiced his exact thoughts, and Pan would bet anything that... "Many gangs and triads have formed around the idea of Poke-Ticket fraud. However, it's the only system the League can think of, and so..."

"We're stuck with it." Pan said out loud, compeletely forgetting to think.

Bianca and Cheren turned around, Bianca looking affronted, Cheren looking amused.

"Excuse me?" Bianca asked, her ears going red. "You know, I wanted to keep you company, but I guess if you think you're 'stuck with me'"-here she made exaggerated air-quotation marks with her fingers- "then I guess I won't bother!" At this, she stomped off huffily.

He and Cheren watched her go in silence; after she had turned the corner, Cheren turned towards Pan, and raised an eyebrow.

Pan made a rude gesture, and followed the direction Bianca had taken, realizing after he had left Cheren quite a ways behind that he had no idea where to go. "Er...Shadow?" He asked mentally.

"Turn right, then left, walk a few blocks..." Pan smiled gratefully, and with the small Zorua perched atop his shoulder like a captain at the bow of his ship, set off.

**-a/n-**

**Yup. Review please! No, really. Literally .02% of you review.**

**-TDK**


	6. Chapter Six: A Brat

**-a/n-**

**Cheren is also quickly forgotten. Really, these first chapters are just exposition; feel free to skip all the descriptive nonsense.**

**-TDK**

As they walked down the sidewalk, Shadow occasionally giving him instructions, Pan wondered how exactly the style of housing in 'Unova' had come about.

Shadow, of course, felt the need to interrupt mentally. "Unova is across the Pokecific Ocean from Hoenn, Johto, Kanto, and Sinnoh. As a result, the accents of the people here and the biologies of the Pokemon, as well as the economy itself, is extremely different. In Hoenn, for example, the houses were built to be able to resist floods and rain, due to the large amount of water in that region. Unova, is divided by two rivers which eventually go into the Pokecific Ocean."

Pan's eyes sparkled as those of Trainers' do when thinking of water; after all, water meant...

Shadow interrupted again. "These rivers, the Zerk and Reshr, cannot be surfed on, though Kyerm, the river directly below Village Bridge, can be surfed on. They divide Unova into a central peninsula, an eastern peninsulas and a western landmass. The central peninsula contains a large desert, a massive forest, and Castelia City, which overlooks the Pokecific Ocean. The eastern peninsula is mostly composed of mountains and forests, with a few cities and settlements here and there. The western landmass consists of a large mountain range that is the western border of Unova, many cities and towns, and a few forests."

Pan frowned, his eyebrows knotting as they waited at an intersection. "Wait, but you just said that surfing isn't allowed on the rivers, so how do you go from place to place? Boats?"

Shadow shook his head. "The three landmasses are connected by five bridges, the Skyarrow Bridge, the Driftveil Drawbridge, the Tubeline Bridge, the Marvelous Bridge, and the Village Bridge." Pan made an ahh of understanding, and Shadow continued. "The eastern peninsula is also divided by mountains, which divide it into a southeastern and northeastern part. The southeastern part is important to Trainers who want to compete in the Pokémon league, since two Gyms are located there, but the northeastern part is not since there are no Gyms there and it is mostly full of tourists, as well as being home to the Champion of Sinnoh."

Pan raised an eyebrow; he had never been to Johto or Sinnoh, but he knew of their existence.

"The central peninsula contains the two largest cities in the Pokémon world, Castelia City and Nimbasa City, as well as Opelucid City further north, though it is the most inhospitable place to live."

"Why?" Pan interjected. "You said there was a huge forest, didn't you?"

Shadow shook his head. "That forest, Lostlorn Forest, is home to my kind, the Illusions. Since we disguise it with our magic, humans believe that it is just a small grove."

Pan shook his head in astonishment, holding up a hand to signal that he was crossing the street and jogging towards a laboratory which Shadow had informed him belonged to Professor Juniper. "Wait, you can disguise an entire forest?"

"Yes," Shadow thought smugly. "Yes, we can. Lostlorn Forest surrounds an even more mystical place, the Entralink. Have you ever wondered where Pokemon go when they are put into their Pokeballs?"

"Er-" Pan would have been lying if he'd said he had never considered it, though he assumed Shadow was going to tell him regardless. "Well, yeah."

"In Unova, they go to the Entralink," Shadow informed him with the air of a master passing on great knowledge to his student. "No human has ever been there -however, the Pokeball technology was developed to sent Pokemon there. I personally have not been there, but those who I know that have tell me it is a wondrous community and place to live." He shook his head gravely. "Unfortunately, Pokemon in their natural habitats, and even us Illusions, cannot enter the Entralink, so the only way to go there is to be captured."

Pan nodded slowly; Shadow was a veritable treasure trove of information.

"Every bridge in Unova connects to the central part of the region from either the east or west; in order to go from the western landmass to the easter, you will have to cross two bridges. The western side contains moderately large towns, as well as more varied landscapes, but also contains three Gyms, making it a necessity for most Trainers. Unova's climate changes with the season, unlike other regions."

Pan shivered; who had ever heard of a place where weather depended on the season? It was unnatural. "But some routes still always have snow and stuff, or rain, right?" He thought hopefully.

"No. Depending on the season, some places are colder, and hail falls, or places are warmer, and sun occurs, or the climate is slightly cold, and it rains. The only permanent weather is near Nimbasa, in the desert, which is full of sandstorms and quicksand year-round. The badge system also works differently in Unova."

"What?!" Pan cried out loud before he could help himself, attracting the attention of a couple walking down the sidewalk opposite to his. He waved feebly at them, inciting laughter, before swearing briefly and sighing in aggravation.

"That was quite funny," Shadow noted before continuing. "So, how the badge system works is like this: Trainers set out on their journeys from all over Unova. They are given a starter Pokemon of some sort, the type varying, and usually challenge the gym nearest to them. Now, each Gym Leader and Gym Trainer assembles different teams to combat Trainers with different badge amounts. For example, if you go to the Striation City Gym right now, you will only have to combat a couple of Gym Trainers at their Battle Cafe, and the leader will battle you with his no-badge team. However, if you obtained all seven of the other Gym Badges and then challenged the Striaton City Gym, you would have to fight around a dozen Gym Trainers, and Cilan would challenge you with his eight-badge team, which would be significantly harder."

Pan rubbed his chin; he could see a large flaw, but he was sure that Shadow would explain it.

"Every Gym Badge that you get actually serves a purpose; by putting it into your Sweet-Scenter, the machine used to attract Wild Pokemon, you will attract higher leveled Pokemon, unlike Kanto, where Pokemon get harder the closer you go towards Victory Road. Also, you may only challenge Trainers who have the same number of Badges as you -however, most Trainers keep several teams with them just for the thrill of battling."

Pan opened and closed his mouth like a fish, before letting out a frustrated sigh. "Why does everything have to be so complicated?!" He thought angrily.

"Oh, and you're about to walk into a wall," Shadow informed him.

Pan yelped, cringing from the concrete wall which he had, in fact, been about to walk into. Muttering under his breath about concrete walls knowing how to teleport, he backed away from the building, boots scuffing the concrete.

"Ah," Shadow noted. "I believe this is what you were looking for?"

Pan raised an eyebrow as he looked over the lab; it was a fairly modest two-story lab, with egg-yellow walls and dozens of windows. The driveway leading up to the lab was concrete, and out front was a small garden, the sprinklers on. Behind the lab was an average-sized greenhouse, as well as a large radio-tower-looking-thing. The front part of the laboratory was a small red-roofed porch; in fact, for that matter, all of the roofs were red. As he squinted, walking through the freshly-mown lawn surrounding the lab, he heard a familiar, slightly snooty voice, and inwardly groaned.

"Pan!" He turned on the spot, Shadow giving a small yelp and digging his small claws into Pan's shoulder.

"Yes, Cheren?" He asked halfheartedly, for it was the blue-jacketed Cheren who was cupping his hand around his mouth and waving his other arm in the air, as if he were waving down a plane.

"Come over here!" Cheren beckoned enormously, as if Pan were blind. The latter groaned, dragging his boots through the dewy grass and rolling his head back to stare at the bright blue sky while he walked towards the former, who was tapping his foot impatiently and checking some sort of watch on his wrist all the while.

Drawing up short as he neared Cheren and saw the strange watch, Pan stuck his head out to observe the device. "What'cha got there?" He asked inquisitively.

Cheren made a sort of tsk-ing noise and leaned about a foot back from Pan; the result was that he overbalanced, his impractical slipper-like sneakers failing to find a grip on the slipper grass and making him fall flat on his butt.

Pan snickered, though he reached out a hand to help up Cheren, who looked as though he was about to burst into a tantrum. His rival -for that was what Pan was beginning to think of Cheren as- slapped away the offered hand, sliding his jacket cuff to cover his hand and then using it to boost himself off of the ground. Pan snorted, absentmindedly starting to stroke Shadow as Cheren picked himself up off the ground, muttering about unclean grass and nosy idiots.

"So what'cha got there?" Pan asked suddenly, sticking his nose into Cheren's face and leering. This, of course, caused Cheren to fall right back onto the ground.

Bianca sighed impatiently, checking the Poketch which Professor Juniper had given her, along with a Pokedex and five Pokeballs. The Pokemon Professor was leaning over a Poke-Computer, or P.C., typing on the machine's high-tech hard-light display. Once again, she marveled at the miracles of modern technology; the Poketch was a Trainer's best friend, providing a clock, news reports, the status of her party -which was just Nicolas, her Tepig, for the moment- as well a whole host of assorted other things, including maps and guidebooks. She heard it was quite a step up from the Sinnoh Poketches, which, for example, only had black-and-white displays as opposed to her full-color pink Poketch.

Hard light, however, was much more revolutionary; a recent discovery by some of the scientists of Team Plasma, a radical group campaigning for better treatment of Pokemon, had led to what was now a household item. Bianca wrinkled her nose, trying to remember what Professor Juniper had briefly explained; as far as she could remember, hard light had something to do with displacing the electrons of the air so that it could be touched with special electron-reaction gloves, but still passed through the regular air, and could be deactivated at the touch of a button.

Bianca sighed, checking her Poketch as she wondered where Pan and Cheren were. It was already seven-thirty; any longer and the three of them would have to traverse Route One in the dark -an experience she definitely wasn't looking forward to.

Professor Juniper noticed her sigh and checked the time on her Poketch, giving a small exclamation and turned off her P.C., straightening up and stretching her arms with a yawn. "You'd better leave," the Pokemon Professor informed Bianca.

Professor Juniper was a pale-skinned woman of thirty, her honey-blonde hair tied into a bun, red earings hitting her slender neck softly. She dressed modestly, wearing a white lab coat over a white tank-top and green skirt. While she was usually quite friendly and helpful, Bianca couldn't help but noticing that the Pokemon Professor seemed rather irritated at the moment -though of course, she was too shy to ask why.

"Okay." Bianca huffed, putting her notebook and pencil back into her bag -she had been drawing Nicolas- and turning to go. She was almost at the door when she remembered something and turned around quickly, snapping her fingers. "But how will Cheren and Pan get their Pokedexes and Pokeballs?" She exclaimed.

Professor Juniper waved off Bianca's concern. "Cheren already has a Pokedex, a Poketch, and a few Pokeballs. I'll make sure to give Pan his." She began walking around the lab, turning off computers; a clear dismissal.

"Ugh!" Cheren shouted, slumping to the wood of the porch in front of Professor Juniper's lab. "This is all your fault!" He whined, glaring at Pan.

Pan grimaced; honestly, it was. After Cheren had finally picked himself up and told Pan about the Poketch, which he was presumably going to get from Professor Juniper, he had incessantly nagged Cheren, resulting in very slow progress. They were currently standing in front of the lab doors, which were apparently locked, with a sign from Professor Juniper reading "you were too late, I've locked up for the night. You can set off for Accumula through the night or wait." According to Cheren, Professor Juniper lived in Accumula Town, which was up Route One.

He shrugged nonchalantly, leaning against one of the red porch-posts. "I don't see how it's that big of a deal," he said casually, inspecting his fingernails. "Unless, of course, you're scared?"

Cheren laughed disparagingly, crossing his arms over his chest and smirking at him. "You really are an idiot, aren't you?" Cheren asked savagely. "Without Pokeballs, or a Pokedex, how are you supposed to make your way through the grass?" His tone left nothing to be inferred; he may as well have said out Pan and his Pokemon were incompetent.

Shadow growled; apparently he didn't like the slight on his abilities either. "Is that a challenge?" Pan asked, his voice deathly still.

Cheren continued to smirk, flexing his arms threateningly. "Maybe it is, runt."

Pan laughed inwardly; this was going to be fun. "Alright, bring it!" He settled himself into a fighting stance, one which Hilbert's body was apparently unfamiliar with, and prepared for Cheren's attack -though it never came.

Instead, Cheren merely reached a hand towards his belt, unclipping his lone Pokeball with a strange expression. "What is that?" He snapped.

Pan straightened, feeling sheepish; clearly Cheren wanted to have a Pokemon battle. He made a big show of getting out his Pokeball, giving enough time for Shadow to make it seem as though he were an Oshawott and communicating mentally all the while.

"Are you sure you're ready for this?" He hissed. "You are still weak from the battle with Bianca's Tepig, aren't you?"

Shadow shrugged, cracking his neck. "I was inexperienced then; I won't expend as much of my power this time with showy illusions, simply frighten it into fainting."

"Ready?" Cheren asked when Pan was ready, their Pokeballs poised for battle. His tone suddenly became businesslike. "This will be a one-on-one battle. The first Pokemon to faint loses."

"Alright." Pan smiled with glee; as always, his adrenaline was pumping, and he had a sudden inspiration. "Shadow!" He thought.

"What is it?" His Zorua hissed back mentally.

"I've got an idea; since you don't have much experience with battles, I can guide you. Cheren seems to be a better battler than Bianca, and he'll probably be communicating with his Snivy via the Poketch!" Cheren had also revealed that the Poketch could transmit commands to your captured Pokemon, as well as display the entire battle on a small screen, a feature which he was most likely going to abuse.

"Very well."

"Let's go!" Cheren shouted suddenly, releasing the catch on his Pokeball and instantly replacing it in his belt, sliding up his sleeve to look at his Poketch.

Cheren's Pokemon was certainly strange -it was a Snivy, Shadow told him mentally- it looked like a snake. The Snivy's body was mostly green, with a creamish underside. As it bared its teeth at Shadow, leaning down to the ground, Pan saw a yellow stripe running down the length of its back and tail. It also had yellow markings around its eyes that extended from its eyelid, and a what seemed like a small, yellowish curved crown above its shoulders. Though the Snivy looked quite like a snake, it had three-fingered arms and small, digitless feet. As it waved its tail threateningly, Pan realized what he had thought at first was a shadow on the ground was in fact a large, frond-like leaf attached to its tail.

Cheren took advantage of his evaluation of the small snake-like Pokemon, and immediately starting punching buttons on his Poketch -the battle had started.

The Snivy growled threateningly at Shadow; he fell back slightly, preparing to pounce -but Pan interrupted mentally.

"Wait!" came the boy's voice hastily.

"I'm listening," Shadow said calmly, circling the Snivy.

"If you just keep attacking it, you'll wear yourself out; try and get its defenses down, then close in for a decisive blow!"

Shadow considered this briefly, tilting his head to the side. It was quite logical; from what Cheren had said, it seemed as though he and Pan would have to travel through the night...

"No sense in wasting my energy," he muttered, and dashed towards the Snivy, hoping to get the element of surprise on his side.

The snake-like creature was taken aback slightly, and attempted to scratch Shadow. He saw the claws coming and dodged, rolling behind the enemy and giving himself the appearance of a towering hulk of metal. The Snivy turned around and gave out a frightened noise; Shadow checked Cheren nervously, but the blue-jacketed trainer was fixated upon his Poketch -all the better.

He drew his large head backwards and then rammed it at the Snivy as if about to hit it -that would be impossible, of course, as his Illusion could not change the world physically- instead screeching harshly at the enemy Pokemon at the last second.

Instead of wailing in pain, as he had expected, the Snivy instead smirked slightly, its body hardening, and then rammed its body into his Illusion-Steelix with surprising force, breaking the Illusion and sending Shadow down in a tumble.

"Pan!" He shouted mentally.

"I don't know what's going on!" came Pan's mental voice, slightly panicked. "The Snivy should have been weakened, but it looks like its stronger -what's going on?!"

Pan turned suddenly towards Cheren. "What was that?" He asked in a high-pitched voice, pointing toward the Snivy.

Cheren smirked, pushing up his glasses with one finger. "Looks like you haven't done your research, Pan!" He taunted. "My Snivy has the Ability Contrary -and that means that any sort of stat-lowering move you try to pull?" He snapped his fingers with a derisive laugh. "It'll just make my Snivy stronger and stronger!"

Pan turned back to the battle with a horrified expression; he had failed Shadow...

Meanwhile, Shadow was attempting to formulate a strategy to defeat the Snivy, when it tackled him suddenly, tumbling him end over end to fetch up against the side of the porch. As Shadow tried and failed to get up, the Snivy closed in on him, apparently savoring the kill...and then it spoke.

"It seems as though you've been caught off guard..." The Snivy's voice was like the rustling of leaves of bark; normally peaceful, yet somehow sinister. It laughed harshly, throwing its small head back. "Well, say good night..."

Shadow hissed in rage, flipping himself onto his back, pushing off of the porch stoop, and sliding underneath the enemy Snivy, while still leaving an illusion of himself behind.

"Shadow, you don't have much time!" Pan's voice came; Pan had seen his stunt, he realized.

"I know!" He responded crossly. "I'll wait until it figures out that that's an Illusion, and-"

"No!" Pan interrupted him. "If you take advantage of this and push him into the porch, you can attack and finish him off!"

Shadow raised an eyebrow; clearly Pan was experienced, because the strategy seemed logical.

He tackled the Snivy into the porch, brutally knocking its face and underside into the hard planks of the stoop.

"Now!" Pan's mental voice was eager, Shadow noted in the calm section of his mind...interesting. "Don't let it counter-attack!"

However, Pan wasn't the only one delivering tactics to his Pokemon; Cheren still had the Poketch, and contrary to Shadows' belief, he had been watching the battle with his own eyes -and he had seen, for a second when Shadow's Illusion slipped, a strange Pokemon that most definitely was not Pan's Oshawott, behind his Snivy.

Cheren's eyes narrowed as he examined the creature, swiftly tapping buttons on his Poketch. He would, of course, have Pan punished -perhaps even arrested- for this, but first, to win the battle. Cheren tapped the 'dodge' and 'roll' buttons on his Poketch simultaneously, which sent an electric signal into his Snivy's brain, commanding it to get out of the way -which it did.

He smirked, glancing at Pan, who had an expression of consternation on his face, before returning to his Poketch...the battle was just beginning.

As Cheren commanded his Snivy to dodge and roll, Shadow attempted to slam it against the planks of the porch -unfortunately, the Snivy was faster, and it rolled out of the way just in time. Shadow's momentum carried him into the porch, slamming him against it and knocking him flat on his back, dazed.

"Wait!" Pan instructed mentally, just as he was about to get up. "Don't attack yet!"

"Why?" He asked, annoyed; he had no intention of letting the Snivy defeat him.

"Wait until the Snivy gets close, then attack! You'll catch it off-guard."

Shadow said nothing, but agreed; there was a reason Pan was the Champion of Kanto and Hoenn, after all.

Meanwhile, Shadow's feint hadn't gone unnoticed to Cheren -he just had no idea what to do about it. He frowned, quickly scrolling through the menu of possible commands, but he simply couldn't see any commands which he could use to make his Snivy overcome the feint. Sighing, he let his Poketch drop to his side with a final command of 'attack'; there was nothing for it.

Just as it would have been impossible for Pan to make Shadow feint via the Poketch, it was impossible for Cheren to combat it, due to the primitive brains of Pokemon. He shook his head in disgust, grimacing; why did he have to get stuck with such a stupid Snivy?!

Shadow pretended to be extremely weak, making a production of trying to scoot away from the Snivy, which was coming towards him with a terrifying smile on its face.

"Say good-bye!" It hissed, leaning over him and raising a claw to finish him.

Shadow smirked, and his eyes flew open, causing the Snivy to start. "Good-bye," He drawled, and attacked, pushing himself slightly off the ground with his arms, and then quickly spinning, using his right arm as a pivot.

As he started to spin, his legs swept the feet of the enemy Snivy out from under it, causing it to fall flat on its face. The Snivy grunted, and was starting to pick itself up off the ground when Shadow's legs returned; Shadow kicked it fiercely in the face, knocking the Snivy backwards into the porch, where it slumped to the ground, in a faint.

"Yeah!" Pan cheered, running towards Shadow, scooping him up, and placing the small fox on his head with a war whoop. "That was awesome!" He grunted, turning to face Cheren with a superior smirk on his face and expecting the other boy to spit on the ground, or admit defeat, or something of the sort.

What Cheren did was completely different.

The other boy smirked at him, and wagged a finger in his direction. "Now now, Pan," Cheren said softly, hands on hips. "Don't gloat -we wouldn't want your secret to get out, now would we?"

Pan raised an eyebrow coolly; he had lied many times before, and he would lie again if necessary. "Huh?" He asked, pretending to be confused; in his experience, it was usually better to act confused than superior.

Cheren, though, was no novice at the games of give and take either. "Your little...abnormal friend?" He drawled, shaking his head. "Honestly, Pan, I've known for five years that you don't have any respect for authority, but don't you thing you're taking this little 'joke' of yours too far?" He put a finger on Pan's chest, suddenly shoving him backwards with malice Pan wouldn't have expected from the younger teenager. Cheren's tone had changed, as well, from mocking to downright threatening. "Look, here's the low-down. I won't expose you, on one eentsy-beensty conditio-"

The blue-jacketed teenager stopped suddenly; an onlooker would have known the reason, because Pan was laughed out loud, doubled over and clutching his sides.

"I didn't think there would be anything so funny about being arrested." Inwardly, Cheren was frowning, and trying to keep cool; there was something unnerving about the way Pan was laughing, a sort of wild, feral implication...

"Ah, I'm sorry." Pan wiped away a tear, still chortling slightly, and his tone changed abruptly. "It's just that you think I'll let you get away," He said softly.

Cheren gulped, trying to play it calm; no doubt if he ran, Pan would get violent. Perhaps, if he appeased the other boy...yes, yes, that was it! Cheren smiled inwardly; he'd pretend to be friends with the spoiled brat, and when all was well and done -wham! He'd get Pan arrested.

"Uh, there's no need for that," Cheren said, forcing a nervous tone into his voice. "I was-just-just joking, really..." He kicked the ground lightly with the tip of his stylish sneakers; he just needed to wait until the other boy let his guard down...

...why wasn't Pan saying anything? Cheren looked up, mouth open and ready to say something witty, and yet nobody was there but his Snivy, now beginning to stir. He frowned, whirling around in the hopes of catching Pan off-guard.

No dice. Cheren blinked, squinting into the darkness; the other boy had gone. With a shrug -after all, he was hardly going to go chasing Pan down without a Pokemon- he knelt down in front of his Snivy, scouring his bag for medicinal items.

Meanwhile, a few dozen feet away, Pan was striding through the sidewalks of Nuvema, his mind half on walking, half on his conversation with Shadow -who, he had to admit, was probably the best partner he'd had in a while.

"Did you see the look in his face?" He asked for the third time, conveying a mental picture to Shadow, which the small Zorua had taught him was possible. All he had to do was dredge up an image, think of Shadow, and it would go through the strange mental link they had. This particular drawing was of a bewildered Cheren, arms flopping around uselessly as he ran around like a chicken with its head cut off, looking for Pan and Shadow, who were running away, the latter on the former's shoulder.

"Not really," Shadow replied for the third time. "I was too busy creating an Illusion of you to occupy Cheren with, while simultaneously putting a sound-sight barrier around the two of us."

Pan nodded; of course, he hadn't actually seen what his Illusion had done. "What did the Illusion do?" He asked casually, fully aware that Shadow could easily have had him confess his (false) love for Bianca to Cheren.

Shadow smirked mentally. "Nothing, nothing," he replied airily. As soon as the teenager Cheren had threatened to reveal his existance, Pan had conveyed a stream of thought, all detailing rather impractical plans with the purpose of escaping Cheren. He had conveyed a scene of an Illusion of Pan appearing, and distracting Cheren while he and Pan snuck away, invisible.

He smiled, recalling how he had tricked the teenager into thinking that Pan was a mentally unstable psychopath. That smile slowly faded, however, as he realized that Cheren would probably tell someone of Pan's unusual behavior.

"Shadow," Pan's voice cut in, "Can I ask you a question?"

"You have obviously just asked me one," he replied wearily, "But sure, go ahead."

"Why does everyone apparently know me as Pan?"

Shadow closed his eyes; he had certainly been hoping that it would take longer for the supposed Champion of Kanto and Hoenn to notice, but it certainly would not do to tell the boy the truth. In fact, he realized, he had been letting himself get far too close to the boy, genuinely interested by Pan's calm mind in battle and humor. He shook his head inwardly; that would not do.

"If you can beat the Champion of Unova," Shadow replied, choosing his words carefully, "Then I will tell you everything. But if you knew now, you would not have the sufficient focus to beat the League." He sighed inwardly; of course, he would not be with Pan by the time the teen got around to challenging Alder, so it was a moot promise.

He sensed the other boy struggling not to say anything, and smiled sadly. Some things were simply meant to be.

They walked in silence for a few minutes, Pan occasionally asking his Pokemon about Unova.

"So what would the other starters have been like?" He asked frankly, eying Shadow, who gave an involuntary gasp, and bounded off of his shoulder.

"I almost forgot!" The small Zorua cried, fishing a Poke-ball from the ruff of fur around his neck and presenting it to him. "This," Shadow proclaimed grandly, "Is one of the starters from another region!"

"Which one?" Pan asked, scooping the Pokeball out of Shadow's paw, the Zorua once again jumping on top of his head. Shadow motioned for him to keep walking, and he did so.

"I have no idea," Shadow replied after some time, shrugging. "My ride here just gave it to me, and I was told to give it to you."

"Hmm..." Pan stopped, checking around to make sure there were no people nearby. For a second, he could have sworn he'd seen a flash of black, but it turned out just to be the shadow of a house's awning. He shrugged, and released the catch of the Pokeball -and out popped a Pokemon he was very familiar with.

The orange-colored, salamander-dinosaur Pokemon looked at him and yawned, revealing four fangs, a cream-colored belly, and a flame burning at the end of its tail.

"Flame?" Pan gasped involuntarily, coloring when the Charmander looked at him oddly, and spoke to him mentally.

"Boy, I don't know who you confusing me with, but my name is Connor. Respect it." Pan blinked; the Charmander's voice was stereotypically gangster-like, and the small Pokemon even made small motions as he talked.

He laughed, shaking his head -it was actually extremely strange to be presented with a Charmander that could have been Flame's brother, albeit much younger, and be told he was going to be keeping it.

"Hop on," he said cheerily, motioning for the small Charmander -Connor, his name was Connor- to hop on top of his head, momentarily forgetting that Shadow was already occupying that space.

Connor looked disbelievingly at the creature, and put his hands on his hips as if affronted that Pan would ask him to share head-room with Zorua. "Now what in the tarnation are you?!" He asked, shaking his head. "I got up to Elesa before I died, but I never saw anything like you!"

" HOLA HOLAH!" Pan shook his head, holding his hands up and staring at Connor incredulously. "What do you mean, you died?"

"Ah," Shadow noted delicately. "I probably should have explained that."

"Explained what, Shadow?" Pan asked furiously.

"Er, well." Shadow coughed. "The Shirnios -the species who-" Pan interrupted.

"I know who they are."

"Yes, well!" Shadow smiled weakly, bounding off of Pan's head and turning around in circles. "They, er, thought it would be a good idea to embody the spirits of those who have failed in their quest -who didn't really die, as per say- into the Pokemon who will accompany...you." Shadow opened one eye tentatively, to find Pan glaring at him.

"So you mean to tell me," Pan said, voice cold, "That Connor and you were once HUMANS?!"

"I wasn't, no, but Connor was." That being said, Shadow jumped back on top of Pan's head before the trainer could object, and resolved never to get on his bad side.

Pan stared down at the Charmander. "So, uh, who were you as a human?"

Connor motioned for Pan to move, and walked by his side, observing the night sky. "I was just a regular Trainer from Kanto," he revealed. "I didn't really know what to do with my life, you know? All I had was my Charmander, and we traveled throughout the region, but eventually..." Connor sighed, shaking his head. "The region just lost its luster, and we lost our lust for travel...and so we come to Unova."

Pan nodded sympathetically; he'd heard many tales like this, inexperienced Trainers going to other regions and then losing all of their Pokemon.

"We were tearing through the gyms," Connor proclaimed suddenly. "One, two, three, without losing a single Pokemon; I had Burst, my Charizard, Zinc, my Lairon, Gusty, my Pidgeotto, and Ted, my Poliwhirl. I thought we were set to take down Elesa, but..." He shook his head gravely. "Zinc got killed by Elesa's Ampharos using Magnitude, and from there everything went to hell." Connor sighed, looking up at the stars. "I had no more Pokemon, and no way to get by in Unova, or return to Kanto. So when these weird-lookin' things come up to me and tell me that if I just become a Pokemon, I can get my life back, I say yes."

Connor glared at Pan, sizing him up, and then muttered gruffly: "Then they killed me...so in case you're wonderin', that's why I'll be sticking with you."

Pan smiled sadly, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand and shaking Connor's paw. "Welcome to the team, buddy," he said warmly.

**-a/n-**

**And that's the 20k mark! I hope I get more reviews soon...**

**-TDK**

**And with that, he r**ealized as they walked out of the outskirts of Nuvema, his journey had officially begun.


	7. Chapter Seven: A Forest

**-a/n-**

**This should really be split up, considering it's four times as long as some other chapters. Ah well.**

**-TDK**

"So." Shadow jumped down from his head, landing with a soft 'wham!' on the dusty path that was Route One. "This is Route One." He waved his paw at the route, a long, meandering path. On either side of the route was a large forest, and off in the distance, Pan could see what looked like the sea. The path seemed to go through large thickets of grass, which looked like they would go over Pan's head, and also went uphill.

"Uh-huh..." Pan nodded, expecting Shadow to go on.

"Yup." And with that, the small Zorua jumped back on top of his head.

"Is there...anything else you wanted to say about Route One?" He asked.

"No, not especially. Well, you can catch your first Pokemon here, but other than that..."

Pan frowned. "I don't have any Pokeballs, how am I supposed to do that?"

Shadow shrugged. "You aren't going to use Connor's Pokeball, or my Pokeball, I expect -you could just use those."

Pan stared at the small creature in disbelief. "It doesn't work like that!" He spluttered. "I thought you said that...something...er...Poketickets...One?"

"You weren't listening, were you?" Shadow asked dryly.

Pans spluttered, muttering incomprehensibly, and Connor started laughing, small embers bursting from his mouth as he did so.

"Oh, that is good!" He chortled, clutching his belly. "Well, I can certainly say that the conversation isn't going to be boring around here." He stepped backwards, chortling, and fell into a thicket of tall grass, quickly vanishing as something pulled him out of sight.

"Connor!" Pan shouted, panicked -he'd lost more than one Pokemon like this- and ran into the thicket, pushing away the grass so that he might see the small Charmander.

Shadow gave a small grunt as the grass whipped both him and Pan, but bravely stood up, extending himself to his full height so that he could look upon the vast sea of grass.

"It's no use!" He mentally communicated after about a minute of frantic running -whatever snatched Connor might still be in the grass- and crawled into the back of Pan's jacket weakly, his head still sticking out. Both he and Pan were starting to bleed from the grass' whiplash, and bleeding out was a serious problem.

"GAH!" Pan shouted out loud, but he stopped, putting his hands on his knees and panting. "We have to find Connor," He said after a few seconds. It was a moot point; both of them already knew that they had to find the Charmander.

"Wait..." Shadow stuck his head out of the back of Pan's jacket, confirming his worst fears; the grass had been thinning out for a while, and the reason was the path towards Accumula Town, barely five feet away. "Pan-" He started, but it was already too late; Pan had pushed away another thicket of wild grass, and realized what Shadow had.

"..." Pan stood very still, fists clenching and unclenching as he considered their options.

"We've already looked through most of the wild grass..." Shadow said tentatively. "And..."

Pan ground his teeth together. "I know," He replied gruffly. If Connor had been anywhere in the tall grass, they would have either found or seen him; his tail, at least, would have been sending up sparks. He sighed. "We need to at least go into town," he muttered, dejectedly walking out of the Route.

"Yeah..." Shadow sighed. "Pokeballs...medicines...food..."

They walked in silence, the only sounds those of wild Pokemon, or the leaves rustling, for a few minutes, Pan dragging his feet and occasionally looking back, as though hoping to catch a glimpse of Connor in the grass.

"We should get to the Pokemon Center," Pan said gruffly, glancing about the town. It looked fairly large, extending for several several blocks; there also appeared to be a staircase leading to a lower level. Normally, he would have explored the town a bit more, but all Pan really wanted to do was get supplies and then drown his sorrows in battle.

With a last look at Route One, he headed straight for the Pokemon Center, a large, four-storied pink-and-white building with sliding doors. Shadow slid back into Pan's jacket; it wouldn't do at all to have one of the other humans see him, and he was just too tired to cast a passable Illusion.

The inside of the Center was chaotic; the large lobby was filled with panicked Trainers, all shouting, and one haggard-looking nurse in a pink dress.

"For the last time!" She shouted, clearly at the end of her wits. "I don't know where your Pokemon have gone!" She waved towards the front desk, where three stressed-looking nurses were rushing about, carrying Pokemon on strollers, trays, and carts to the large hospital behind the front desk. "Please, if your Pokemon are legitimately injured, take them to the front desk! We don't know where your Pokemon have disappeared to! I repeat, if you have recently lost your Pokemon in Routes One or Two, we do not know where they are!"

Pan and Shadow exchanged mental looks; they weren't alone.

Pan confidently strode up to the nurse, who was now shaking her head and ticking boxes on her clipboard. "Excuse me-" He was cut off by the nurse, who didn't even bother to look up.

"Listen, if it's about your Pokemon getting lost, I can't help you."

"Er-" Pan thought quickly; he'd need some sort of other story, obviously to get some answers.

"Tell her you saw something!" Shadow hissed mentally.

"I saw something!" Pan cried, drawing the attention of the entire Pokemon Center, dozens of Trainers standing up eagerly, their faces covered with tear tracks. Aware that if he slipped up, he might be lynched, Pan continued, inventing the story as he went along. "I come from Nuvema Town, and me and two of my friends, Bianca and Cheren, got our starter Pokemon today. I was supposed to meet Professor Juniper to get Pokeballs, a Poketch, and a Pokedex, but I got held up, and she told me to meet her here. So, er, I was walking through, and I heard a yelp, and I, uh, turned around, and I saw something getting grabbed!" Pan finished, hardly daring to look up.

"The forest!" One of the Trainers snapped her fingers excitedly. "That must be where our Pokemon are; something or somebody is in there, and they're grabbing our Pokemon!"

"I say we go after them!" Another Trainer cried.

The proclamation was taken up by many Trainers, all of them looking at Pan. After a long silence, one of the nurses sighed exasperatedly.

"Aren't you going to go after them?" She asked incredulously.

"Wh-why me?" He sputtered. Seeing the murderous looks on the Trainer's faces, he hastily amended. "I mean, why do I need to go alone?"

"Because all of our Pokemon have been taken! Yours haven't!"

"Yeah!"

The cry was once again taken up by the Trainers, and Pan felt trapped; how could he take on whatever was hiding in the forest with just Shadow.

"Now you're in for it," Shadow whispered into his ear.

The two of them were quickly hustled out of the doors of the Pokemon Center, accompanied by a wave of healing items, Pokeballs, and other things associated with being a Trainer; these items included the Pokedex and Poketch that Pan was supposed to have received.

"Alright, go get 'em!" The horde of anxious Trainers cheered, a variety of expressions on their face.

Pan mustered up as much enthusiasm as he could. "Er...yeah," he mumbled, forcing a smile onto his face.

The Trainers and nurses had told him quite a bit about the forest. Apparently there were multiple paths inside of the forest, but no 'official' path that went into the forest; this was due to a lack of Pokemon in the forest. Apparently, though, that had changed. He and Shadow were to follow unusual signs of activity into the forest, find out where the Pokemon were, and then show the Pokemon various items that related to their Trainers.

This was another thing Shadow had informed him was quite common; in case of emergency or delivery, all Trainers were supposed to teach their Pokemon to recognize certain items, and aid the people carrying them. Most of these items were photocopies of Trainer Cards or Pokeballs, though there were some more unusual things in there, such as pictures, balls, and even toys.

"Shall we try and do a runner?" Shadow inquired as soon as they were into the grass, now moving at a slower pace.

Pan shook his head grimly; Shadow hadn't really been expecting the Champion to abandon their task, but he hoped it was worth a shot.

"No way," Pan growled forcefully, with a shake of his head. "We're finding Connor, and that's that."

They tramped through the grass in silence for a few moments, Pan fully aware that Shadow wasn't satisfied with his explanation, and also aware that he'd need to make the Illusion understand his orders, not just obey.

"Look," he reasoned. "If we get back all of their Pokemon, we're sure to gain some sort of popularity, and that's needed, isn't it?" Of course, he had no idea whether or not popularity was needed, but it was an assumption he felt was logical.

Shadow growled softly, but replied. "Yes. There are thousands upon thousands of Trainers out there, and barely any of them even get to take on their first gym."

Pan frowned. "Why? Is it because they aren't good enough, or...?"

"No. It is simply because Gym Leaders have a schedule to maintain, and so does the Gym itself; most Gyms have a waiting list, but it can take anywhere from a few weeks to months for them to admit ordinary challengers. That is one of the major reasons that nobody thus far has completed the League Challenge-" He was cut off by Pan, who had mentally butted in, his tone incredulous.

"Nobody has completed the League Challenge?!" Pan asked. "I thought you said the Unova League has been running for almost a year!"

"Yes," Shadow replied irritably, "And I also said that many Gym Leaders take weeks to months to admit ordinary challengers. In fact, some of the more popular Gyms, in cities like Opelucid and Nimbasa, give up any pretense of a waiting list; a challenger would have to wait for up to a year to get a slot, so they only accept the challenges of notable Trainers."

Pan shook his head irritably; that wasn't how the system had been in Kanto or Hoenn, had it? He frowned; it was getting harder and harder to remember any of his memories from the two regions, though he suspected that was just due to the overload of information he'd had to absorb about Unova.

"Wait!" He pointed towards a small, dark opening in the trees. "I think that's it!"

"Wait!" He pointed towards a small, dark opening in the trees. "I think that's it!"

"And why do you think that?" Shadow inquired, squinting at the path; as far as he could tell, there was nothing unique about it.

Pan transmitted an image mentally, and Shadow squealed, jumping out of his jacket and quivering on the ground, eyes tightly shut.

"Er-r'you 'fraid of spiders?" Pan asked cautiously.

He'd seen several dozen spiders scurrying in and out of the opening; he didn't recognize some of them, but he could at least identify the Spinarak among them. They were green, spider-like Pokemon with six black-and-yellow legs, pink mandibles, and a white horn atop their hide. Admittedly, the Spinarak were much larger than they should have been, each about the size of his foot, but still, they were Spinarak.

The other spiders were about the size of his foot, yellow and mite-like with four eyes and no visible mandibles. These were scurrying about and dragging seemingly paralyzed Pokemon to the opening of the forest, where the large Spinarak appeared to bind them with string and then carry the bound Pokemon into the forest itself.

"N-n-no. Y-yes. No. Yes." Shadow, suddenly realizing that it probably was not safe to be on the ground with dozens of spiders scurrying about, jumped back into Pan's jacket. "Please don't go in there."

Pan sighed, massaging his temples; he could see this was going to be a problem.

"Look," he said firmly, walking towards the opening in the forest and being careful to make as little noise as possible. "We have to go in there. You know that. We have to save Connor!"

"But...but there are spiders in there!" Shadow cried, fruitlessly attempting to stop Pan from moving forwards.

"I've noticed," Pan replied dryly with a shake of his head; this was not due to Shadow's complaints, but rather the spiders themselves.

The spiders had somehow noticed the two of them, and many of them were now getting into position, ready to strike. The Spinarak were lying, concealed, most likely hoping to catch one of his feet and then crawl up his body. The mite-things had scurried up into trees, suggesting that they could somehow attack him from range.

Pan frowned. However he looked at it, the situation was disturbing; he hadn't shown any signs of hostility as far as he was aware, and Pokemon rarely attacked humans for going into their habitats. Now, if he had attempted to attack one of the Spinarak or mite-things, he would have understood; as far as the Pokemon were concerned, that was an open act of aggression, one of the reasons that Trainers were advised not to go into mainly Bug-Pokemon-inhabited areas, due to the high chance of accidentally attacking a Pokemon.

However, he had done no such thing, and yet the Pokemon still seemed ready to attack. In fact, Pan realized with a jerk, some of the Spinarak were quickly scurrying towards him!

Pan yelled aloud, turned, and started to sprint away as fast as he possibly could.

"Keep running!" Shadow called unhelpfully -though to his credit, he was conjuring various Illusions for the advancing spider horde to combat, such as what looked like live, crackling fires, and other Pokemon. However, the Pidgies, Rattatas, and Koffings he willed into being simply could not stop the spiders. The Spinarak and mite-things were either mindless, and were completely disregarding their safety by running head-first into the Pokemon which should have been their natural predators, or incredibly smart and able to see through the Illusions.

Pan attempted to send back a witty reply, but in doing so lost his concentration, tripping over a tree root that he could have sworn had not existed a few moments ago. Lying on the ground, panting and without any hope of being able to get up fast enough to escape the spiders -now just a few meters away- Pan sighed ruefully; his journey had come to an end just as it had barely begun.

Shadow, for his part, was willing more and more Illusions into being. Unfortunately, just like their predecessors, they were useless, and only served to drain his energy. He, too, quickly accepted the inevitable, his only thoughts that it wasn't fair.

The strangely rocky tree stooped, scooping up Pan and Shadow, who were near unconsciousness, and being to dash away from the spiders, who pursued the Sudowoodo for a few yards before returning to the forest.

"Pan..." Shadow managed before fainting.

Pan was slightly more resilient, weakly attempting to get the Sudowoodo's attention. However, very little can get through solid rock, and he eventually tired out, though he did not faint.

The Sudowoodo ran for another few seconds, eventually coming to a halt at another entrance to the Forgotten Forest, as it was called, this one unprotected and, ironically enough, forgotten. While the rocky mimic was intelligent enough for its species, it had not yet been captured by Pan -and indeed, it did not intend to- and thus was unable to communicate with Shadow, whose gift extended only to Pokemon caught in a Pokeball. As a result, it unceremoniously dumped the two of them on the ground, basking in the sunlight until the two got up enough energy to enter the forest.

Shadow was the first to get up; as an Illusion, he had enormous amounts of energy, as well as amazing recuperation of said energy. The small Zorua got up with a groan, saw the Sudowoodo, and frowned.

"Who are you?" Shadow asked, attempting to remember how the Sudowoodo language went; most of it was gestures, but that wasn't an option.

The Sudowoodo raised one eyebrow; why was the small Illusion asking it how to get to the underworld? Was it, perhaps, suicidal? The rocky tree shook its head, and turned to Pan, who was now sitting up.

"What is a Sudowoodo doing in this place?" Pan communicated, bewildered.

Shadow shrugged, glancing warily at the Mimic Pokemon, who seemed content to merely bask in the sun's rays.

"I honestly don't know, but it did save us."

"We could have gotten away if it hadn't tripped me," Pan pointed out.

Shadow rolled his eyes impatiently. "Yes, but the fact remains that it still saved us, and that was on purpose; the tripping was an accident. As a result, the Sudowoodo is not immediately malicious; while it may be choosing to take advantage of us later on, it is not an immediate threat."

"That makes no sense!" Pan protested.

"Of course it does," replied Shadow. "Now, I believe we have a Forgotten Forest to go into...?"

The Sudowoodo jumped up from its basking, seemingly eager to be off. It shook itself up, seemingly ready to enter the forest.

"That reminds me," said Pan aloud. "I thought you were afraid of spiders?"

Shadow went slightly gray, but shook his head with a determined expression on his face. "I've temporarily cast an Illusion around me, so that I will no longer see spiders, but small, pink rabbits."

Pan stared at him, incredulous; Shadow actually had his nose in the air, attempting to be dignified.

"You can't be serious," said Pan, shaking his head. "Don't you need to, y'know, conserve your power for more important things?"

Shadow licked a paw, unconcerned. "I can hardly use my powers if I'm terrified out my wits, now can I?" He shook his head, jumping on top of Pan's shoulder once more. "Now -come, we really must be going."

Pan shrugged, and they stepped into the woods. The forest was full of many ancient trees, densely clustered together, their branches blocking out the moon. The way was hard going, as the trees had spread their roots out so much, presumably having had free reign for hundreds of years, that the 'ground' was nothing but a thin layer of dirt over intertwining roots.

The Sudowoodo gripped Pan suddenly, its leaf-hand clamping around his wrist and restraining him.

"What's the matter with-" Pan stopped as he saw what he had been about to step on; a mutilated, broken corpse. For a few seconds, neither Pan nor Shadow did anything, dumbstruck by the sight of the body, which had been brutally dissected.

The body was face-down -and none of them cared to touch it- but it looked vaguely human, from the uniform it was wearing. It appeared as though something had jumped down from one of the trees above, landing squarely on the person's back with enough force to drive the center of the body several inches into the ground, and then proceeded to shred apart most of the body.

Pan staggered off to one side, and vomited, uncaring if Shadow was still on his shoulder -which, luckily, the small Zorua wasn't, having jumped off to examine the body- and took in a shuddering breath.

"What was that?!" He cried shrilly, breathing shallowly at the sight of the body.

"Looks like somebody was trying to investigate the forest, and something landed right on top of them; it was heavy enough to make a crater in the ground, which implied that it was at least several hundred pounds if not more, and after killing the person on impact, it proceeded to desecrate the corpse," said Shadow.

"It-it could have been some sort of natural predator, right?" asked Pan, hoping against all odds that there wasn't some sort of homicidal beast on the loose.

Shadow shook his head grimly. "For starters, anything that wanted this for food would have most likely taken the body back to its lair."

"But what if it couldn't or something?" argued Pan.

Shadow sighed. "Please don't interrupt me. As I was saying...we can assume whatever killed this person was strong enough to take it back, because of its immense weight. Of course, there is the possibility that it was scared off, but that brings up the even more disturbing possibility that something in this forest can scare off a several-hundred-pound creature. Now, it could have just been unwilling to take back the body; however it would have most likely eaten all of the body."

"What if it wasn't hungry?" Pan was now shaking; he could swear that he was hearing a soft, incessant rustling -though surely, that was impossible.

Shadow frowned, scratching one ear with a paw. "Well, that is possible...however, there is also the matter of it not only attacking but mutilating a human; no Pokemon in its right mind would do such a thing. The repercussions are always immense."

Pan sighed, shaking his head and leaning back against one of the trees, trying to ignore the stench emanating from the body. "So...what's your theory?"

Shadow shook his head as well, turning his back on the corpse and jumping back on top of Pan's shoulder. "I have three. The first is that it was an incredibly powerful Pokemon that was also out of its mind."

Pan shuddered; while he could easily have taken any wild Pokemon with his old team, Shadow and a Sudowoodo simply wouldn't cut it. "And the other two?"

"...The thing that did this was an incredibly powerful Pokemon, which was also dangerously malicious. And the last is that it was a powerful Pokemon that was somehow being controlled," finished Shadow. "I think we should get a move on..."

Pan frowned, but nodded his understanding, and stood up from the tree; the Sudowoodo was already walking away, so Pan hurried to catch up, following slightly behind the Sudowoodo.

They walked behind the rocky tree for around ten minutes. While there were no visible trails that either Shadow or Pan could see, their guide always seemed to know where to go, stepping over roots and across occasional streams. There was no sound but an occasional scurrying, the rustling of branches, and the sounds of the trio themselves. The farther they went into the forest, the thicker the trees became, and the less light filtered through the branches.

Finally, when Pan estimated they had been walking for the better part of an hour, the light disappeared altogether, and they were in the dark.

Pan paused, biting his lip and squinting; the Sudowoodo had turned around a tree, and Pan had followed him, but now there was no sign of their guide.

"What d'you reckon we should do?" asked Pan nervously. He attempted to see through the darkness, but it was no use; it was pitch-black, and Pan could hear the rustling again.

"We've come this far," argued Shadow; while he did have night vision, the darkness of the forest was unusual; sinister, even. "We might not even be able to find our way back."

Pan gulped; he hadn't been keeping track of the twists and turns in the path that they had followed. What was worse, the rustling was now louder; it sounded like the scurrying of a thousand legs over leaves -and suddenly, Pan was truly afraid.

But they continued on, albeit at a slower pace, resolutely continuing deeper and deeper into the forest. He and Shadow walked for what seemed like half an hour, tripping, falling, and having his clothes caught on trees. After a while, Pan realized that the ground had been gradually sloping downwards.

"Shadow!" He communicated his findings, and the Zorua transmitted back a worried-looking frown.

"That's not good..." Shadow shook his head, in the process snapping a branch with a crack. "We should try and get out; I don-"

Pan cut off the Zorua. "It's the Sudowoodo!" Pan pointed excitedly towards a faint source of light, where a familiar, sapling-like figure stood silhouetted.

"What?" asked Shadow, turning his head; the Sudowoodo was in fact standing in the only source of light for miles, a grove where light filtered down clearly.

Pan started towards their guide excitedly, but a fierce bite from Shadow stopped him. "Yowch!" shouted Pan aloud without thinking. "What did'ya do that for?!"

"Shut up!" hissed Shadow mentally, turning his head to see if anything had seen -though of course, he was blind, so it mattered not- and then elaborating. "He may be a lure; maybe if we go towards him, something nasty will pop up!"

Pan shook his head, amused at the suggestion. "Look, you said yourself that it's unlikely he'd try to trick us!"

"That was before he abandoned us, possibly to die!" cried Shadow.

Pan rolled his eyes, a smirk on his face. "Look, Shadow, I've respected your opinion thus far on topics that have to deal with Unova, but there's absolutely no wa-"

He was cut off by the horrifying sight which had loomed up behind the Sudowoodo; while the light streaming in from the grove made it impossible to see anything but its silhouette, Pan knew instinctively that it was not to be trifled with. It was as if some ancient instinct within him had suddenly come to life, screaming "it is unnatural, it is a blasphemy, it is not right, it was not meant to be" and simply wouldn't stop.

Shadow sucked in a gasp; while his Illusion made it impossible for him to see the creature -which he had instinctively judged as an arachnid, thus putting into place the Illusion- he did know that it was a spider of some sort, and thus bad.

"You were saying?" murmured Shadow telepathically.

Pan reddened, barely managing to stifle his scream in time. "We have to get out of here, now." He shuddered, taking a few steps back...

...and walked into something.

Pan's shoulders sagged; this was it, it was over, and surely any second now, something hairy with lots of legs would be crunching him in half. He closed his eyes, preparing for the inevitable -yet it never happened.

Instead, an amused voice clicked "I would assume that you are here to help, correct?"

Pan whirled around, finding himself face-to-face with one of the strangest Pokemon -for he assumed it was a Pokemon- he'd ever seen.

The Pokemon was a strange, six-legged ant-like Pokémon with a steel-gray body and black legs. However, no ant was a meter tall and three long, with giant, jagger pinchers and a steel-like carapace. The strange Pokemon's abdomen was shaped like that of a spider, with a bulbous torso leading to a wasp-like behind. The Pokemon blinked, drawing his attention to its red eyes and long, steely antannae, tipped with iron balls.

The entire effect was an extremely threatening one, and in spite of himself, Pan yelped aloud, jumping backwards and falling flat on his behind.

His cry was not unnoticed; there was a stunned second of silence, in which the ant-like Pokemon dove towards Pan and Shadow, scooping them up with its pincers and placing them on its back, and then hell broke loose.

Within the space of a few seconds, the forest was transformed from a state of relative tranquility -albeit a rather spooky state- into a state not unlike that of a hive preparing for war. Dozens, if not hundreds of insectoid Pokemon broke out from the trees, the ground, and the sky, all seemingly bent on devouring the three of them.

Shadow turned white, and began chanting incomprehensibly; it was clear that he was conjuring up some sort of Illusion, but the ant-creature smacked the small Zorua about the head with one of its antannae.

"Don't do that!" The steel-bug hissed, firmly standing its ground. "We may yet need your strength, and in case you hadn't gathered, these things are immune to Illusions."

"Nice to know," muttered Pan, about to kick away a small yellow-mite-thing when the Durant smacked him with the other antannae.

"Are you crazy?!" clicked the steely ant. "Don't get aggressive, or they'll lose it!"

Pan glared at the Durant, but allowed the small yellow creature to crawl atop. Expecting the thing to attack him, he was thus very surprised when it shuddered slightly, and spoke up.

"Um...a-are you going to hurt me?" It asked timidly.

Pan smiled despite himself; what had he been thinking? All of the other mites had been at least the size of his hand; in comparison, this one was about the size of his middle three fingers put together. He gingerly grasped the Pokemon, expecting it to be hairy and creepy; instead, it was pleasantly warm, and furry, like a dog.

"And what's your name, little one?" Pan asked softly.

The Pokemon looked up at him, and a smile seemed to come over its spider-like features. "I'm Lucy...I-I don't know where I am, really..." Lucy shut her eyes, tiny tears leaking out of them. "I was with my big sis; she's a really good Trainer, and -and then a scary man came, and then I was here."

Pan barely suppressed his rage, and Shadow let out a growl; the girl was a child! His rage towards the things that had forced him into this bet, boiling at the surface since he had found out about them, now threatened to break out with the force of an eruption.

"And...do you know what you are now?" He asked tentatively, hoping that he wouldn't have to break the news to her.

"..." The tiny Pokemon opened her eyes, as Pan noticed their color -a bright, clear blue- and nodded sadly. "I'm a Joltik," she confessed. "My big sis said that when she married the bug-man she'd get a Joltik of her own, because I loved them so much." Lucy looked up at Pan hopefully. "Do-do you think I could go back to her now?"

Pan, seething with rage, gulped, forcing a smile onto his face; while he had been talking to Lucy, the horde of insects had drawn closer to them. One bee-like Pokemon, with the stinger of a wasp and two lance-like needles at the end of its arms, about the size of a car standing upright, was buzzing around them. Behind it, two purple-and-green moths with tattered wings and egg-shaped bodies hovered in the air, communicating with each other via what seemed to be the beating of their wings.

Pan narrowed his eyes; the horde clearly wasn't going to attack -perhaps they were waiting for their leader? He shook his head, turning back to Lucy.

"Um...Lucy, listen," said Pan. "Do- do you know what death is?"

The Joltik tilted its head in consternation. "Oh, yeah. It's what happens to little Caterpies and Weedles when they get eaten by Pidove!" Lucy frowned. "Oh...am I dead?"

Pan nodded gravely, expecting her to burst into tears, or something of the sort. Instead, she shook her head.

"No, I can't be dead," she decided with a shake of her yellow head. "After all, I can talk, and I can feel this" -here she tapped the ant's back with one furry leg- "so I can't be dead. Oh -what's your name?" She lifted her head up, and Pan realized she was talking to him.

"Er-I'm Pan G." Pan realized that he hadn't, in fact, ever told his name to Shadow -yet the small Zorua knew it. Strange, strange...

Lucy, oblivious to his inner turmoil, nodded, and tapped the steely ant's carapace again. As she did so, Pan realized that he could hear the legs again; the hundreds of thousands of legs, scurrying unnaturally upon leaves. He shuddered, tearing himself away from the noise and focusing back on the conversation.

"...Jacob, and I'm a Durant," said the giant ant gruffly.

"Wait, you were a Pokemon?" asked Pan, confused.

Jacob shook his head in annoyance. "I was about to get to that." Pan didn't see anything, but he would have bet all of the money he'd won from Cheren -which had apparently been automatically transferred to his bank account- that the Durant had winked at Lucy, because the tiny Joltik giggled.

"Pan!" interrupted Shadow. "It's coming!"

He jumped, not hearing the rest of Jacob's sentence -seeing something as horrifying as what he was seeing will do that to people.

A distant corner of his mind was cool and collected.

The rest of his mind was not; he was faintly aware that he had screamed silently, dumbstruck by terror. It was really no wonder that all of the Bug Pokemon were obeying; how could they not? The...thing, the horrible thing, radiated an aura of horror that would surely bring any living thing to its knees.

His shocked reverie was interrupted by Shadow, who jumped roughly into his mind, destroying his mental image of the thing which was slowly crawling towards them.

"Pan!" came Shadow's panicked voice. "What do we do?!"

Pan blinked, taking note of their situation. The insects, who had seemingly been under orders from their eldritch abomination of a master not to harm the four of them, now had no such orders, and were pursuing them with due haste. The Beedrills, Duxtox, and other flying insects were zipping towards them; in fact, Pan noticed, the trees around them were passing by at a blur -but how?

Looking down, he realized with a start that Jacob, the 'Durant', was in fact extremely fast; his legs were coming down one after the other with extreme force, propelling them through the forest at an incredible speed; the insects couldn't hope to keep up.

"Jacob, there's no use!" cried Pan in despair. It had taken him and Shadow over an hour to go through the forest; even at the rate Jacob was going, it would take them at least fifteen or twenty minutes to leave -and that was assuming Jacob could keep up his current pace.

Jacob's antannae made circles around each other, which Pan assumed was the Durant's way of rolling his eyes, and he spoke in a slightly clipped tone. "Kid, before I got in that car crash, I was a world-class athlete; I could cross the length of Tubeline Bridge in less'n a minute, and that hasn't changed."

"He's got a point!" shouted Shadow, now devoting his time to making an Illusion barrier in front of the abomination of life that was slowly and inescably crawling towards them, so that they could all think more clearly. "Even if we do manage to outrun them, then what? We have to go back in, or they'll just leave the forest and tear down the whole of Accumula trying to get at us!"

The Durant growled, not letting up his face, and Pan was sure, in a brief, terrifying moment of clarity, that Jacob would have ran forever had it not been for Lucy's intervention.

"Mr. Jacob, please," said Lucy in a slightly panicked tone. "I-I think Pan and, um, I'm sorry Mr. Fox, but I didn't catch your name..."

"Shadow," answered the small Zorua as he shot a few pulses of Illusion towards the horde -not that it was really needed, of course- and noted with delight that, having been put into a Trainer's care, he was finally starting to grow up, or as the Trainers called it, 'evolving'.

"Right, Shadow. Um-anyways, I don't think running is the best decision." Lucy hesitated slightly, but plowed on. "I-I think we should try and reason with them!"

"What?!" asked Jacob frantically, almost stopping in shock. "Girl, are you crazy?!"

Pan was confused as well. "No, Lucy," he explained patiently, "We don't try and reason with evil, mind-controlling horrors, we try and fight them."

Shadow, however, was silent, apparently seriously pondering Lucy's proposition.

"Oh, come on, Shadow!" shouted Pan incredulously, not having missed his Pokemon's silence. "You can't agree with her!"

"Well..." Shadow sounded slightly put-out, Pan realized. "...she does have a point. We can't run" -here he tipped his head towards Jacob- "And we can't really fight all of them and it" -and here to Pan- "and to be honest, we don't even know if it's malicious."

"Come off it!" Pan shook his head. "That last part's absolute trash; it's clearly evil -why else would it be stealing Trainer's Pokemon?" As he said this last bit, Pan leaned forward, spreading his hands apart and face-up to show that there was no other explanation. "Look-" Pan wasn't sure what he would have said, but he forgot it as Jacob came to a sudden halt, making a wide arc in the thin layer of soil above the roots of the forest as he turned around, stopping with his head towards the onslaught of Bug Pokemon.

"I agree with Lucy," said Jacob without preamble. "We're going to reason with 'em."

Pan sighed, shaking his head in distress. "Fine..."

Lucy squeaked in happiness, rolling over onto her back and back onto all sixes. "Alright! Guys, you won't be sorry!"

"We should still be ready to attack at any time," muttered Shadow gruffly, most of his mind on the insects, which were drawing closer every second.

Pan nodded seriously, taking his hands out of his pockets. "Alright; this might just devolve into a rumble, so in that case...Jacob, can you run backwards?"

Jacob snorted -well, as much as a giant ant could snort- and scuffed the ground with one steely leg. "'Course I can run backwards, kid. Why -what's your plan?"

"Well, we try and reason with them, but if they get violent, Jacob, you need to keep your head in front and run backwards, as fast as you can. As for the rest of us..." He shot glances at Lucy and Shadow, both of whom he assumed wouldn't be able to attack from afar.

Shadow, of course, caught on mentally, and shook his head ever-so-slightly. Pan sighed; a disappointment, but what could he do? It seemed as though they would get a bit scuffed up...

...of course, as the tale goes, then Lucy piped up.

"Ooh! Ooh!" The Joltik concentrated briefly, and something wonderous happened; her body seemed to glow, and then a nearby leaf was struck with a sudden burst of charged particles, becoming vaporized.

Pan nearly fell off of his Durant; what on earth was that?! He'd seen attacks based on electricity before, but...what had Lucy just done?!

Jacob, of course, saw nothing, but shuddered slightly as he felt the remains of the leaf landing on his back. Shadow, however, was not so oblivious.

"What did you just do?!" cried the small Zorua, leaping up.

Lucy blinked, looking hurt. "I-I thought it was good..." She said in a small voice, sounding hurt.

Pan glared at Shadow, who cowered, before turning back to Lucy and gently picking her up. "That was wonderful," he pronounced gently. "But...er...what exactly did you do?"

Lucy smiled up at him. "Oh -it's simple, really! Joltiks can produce electricity, so I thought I could, too!"

"That's all well and dandy," burst out Shadow, "But that wasn't any electric-based attack I've ever seen!"

Pan nodded in spite of himself. "Lucy, he's right -that wasn't a regular attack, was it?"

He had been expecting her to be confused, or else deny it; instead, the small electro-mite shook her head vigorously. "Oh, no," she replied happily. "That was what my big sister always called a 'hadron acceleration collision'!"

Pan was dumbstruck, and from the mental shockwaves coming from Shadow, he guessed that the small Zorua was as well. Lucy, however, continued on, oblivious.

"See, it's real easy. I just focus, and I imagine the little eentsy-beentsy bits in the leaf going faster and faster and faster and then hitting each other, and bam!" As if to add emphasis -not that she needed it- Lucy struck down another leaf.

Jacob, who had been listening, clicked his pincers in agitation. "Lucy, girl...that ain't natural."

Lucy looked up at Pan, confused. "It's not? But...but..."

Pan smiled nervous, stroking Lucy with a hand that shook. "Um...Lucy, how big of a target d'you reckon you could hit with that?"

The business of hadron acceleration, of course, was extremely dangerous; while neither Hoenn nor Kanto had gotten very far in its research, Pan had heard horror stories of cannons and such malfunctioning, and wiping entire cities off the face of the Town Map. The Trainer in him, though, the Champion, was busy attempting to take advantage of this newfound ability -it would be a cold day in hell when a Pokemon could stand up to a sufficiently powerful hadron explosion.

Shadow angrily burst into his musings. "Are you crazy?!" hissed Shadow. "If she gets out of control-"

"She won't, she won't," soothed Pan. "Look, we'll need all the help we can get for this fight!"

Shadow grumbled, but said nothing, and Pan found that Lucy had already finished, looking up at him expectantly.

"What's that?" He asked.

Lucy blinked. "Oh, was I not loud enough? Sorry -I said that that leaf is the biggest thing I can hit right now." Seeing the falling expression on his face, she quickly added, "But-I'm sure I can get better!"

Pan cheered up at this thought; obviously, she would -Pokemon matured and grew over time, gaining knowledge and power from the Pokemon they defeated.

"I hate to interrupt," said Jacob in a low voice, "But I believe that thing is ready to meet us."

Pan sucked in his breath, realizing only as he turned around that Shadow had put up an Illusion wall in front of the eldritch creature, and gave a sigh of relief.

Because of the Illusion, the abomination appeared only as a black void, surrounded by hordes of bees, moths, butterfly, praying mantis', spiders, scorpions, and other such insects. Pan gulped, realizing how suicidal it would be to fight them all; there would literally hundreds of the more powerful Bugs, and perhaps thousands of the weaker Pokemon.

"Amusing...you have decided not to run..."

Pan almost went insane right then and there; while Shadow's Illusion wall prevented him from seeing the horror, nothing was stopping him from hearing its voice...and how awful it was. It was fingernails on a chalkboard, the hissing of serpents over sand, thousands of hairy legs scurrying over bloated corpses, every nightmare he had had as a child made into sound.

Yet he had never been this scared from a nightmare, never this unnaturally terrified or this paralyzed with fright. A distant conrner of his mind noted that the voice itself was not, in fact, that frightening -while it was gruesome, something else entirely was causing such an amplified reaction. The fear that he felt from hearing the voice itself and the fear that he felt after he heard it were completely different.

In fact, he realized, there was a slight desync between hearing the voice, which was even now still echoing around the forest, thousands of insects frozen from its effects, and experiencing the fear -almost as if the aberration itself was not frightening.

All of these thoughts, however, were completely banished when he saw the effect that the thing-behind-the-wall was having on its environment; Shadow's Illusion simply put what was a seeming absence of light in front of the creature, and so Pan saw a silhouetted version of everything. As the creature's voice echoed around the forest, the creature itself moved, thousands of ragged tendrils, or sickly arms, or jagged, chitinous legs moving and drifting and scuttling, every nightmare he'd ever experienced taking over his dreams now taking over the world.

Where these tendrils or arms or legs of darkness made contact, they corrupted. The ground beneath the void was blackened, the grass and soil sickly and paler than they should have been, and every few seconds, the taint spread. Every branch, twig, and leaf that was touched even in the slightest by one of the blasphemy's body parts was quickly killed, drooping and then dying, spreading the corruption to the rest of the tree.

And when an insect was unfortunate enough to make contact with its horrid master, the results were gruesome; the insect swelled and then burst in a gush of disease, quickly spreading the taint.

Indeed; he almost lost it, the voice sending him into paroxyms of despair -but somehow, he hung on, but just by a thread.

"Pan!" came Shadow's voice, as if from a haze. "Just-just hang on! You can't lose this now!"

Pan almost replied that he couldn't hang on, that he wasn't choosing to die; the voice was just so incredibly terrible that he didn't have a choice -and then he remembered.

He was Pan, Champion of Kanto and Hoenn, protector of the small and destroyer of the sinister. He had united the warring elements, talked sense into the creation of that villainous team, always blasting off, and turned away the shape-shifting alien. Was he really to die like this -stricken down by a foe who he could not even face head on, an eldritch creature from an abyss unknown?

"No," he said quietly, and then stronger. "NO!"

The void seemed taken aback, its formless mass shifting. "No? Does my voice not drive you to your knees...? Despair, mortal...despair."

Pan realized, coolly, that the voice had not changed; rather, its effect upon him had. It was no longer all-powerful, merely the amplified voice of a once-powerful creature. He smirked, crossing his arms and looking up at the horde, which was taken aback.

"Despair?" Pan asked lazily, shaking his head. "No...I think not. We want our Pokemon back -that is all," he stated coolly.

The void laughed. "Aww, the little Trainer came to our forest and thought what it heard was true..."

"Let me say it in simpler terms, you pile of sludge." Pan's calm surface was about to boil into a lake of rage; he had had just about enough of the creature. "I had a Pokemon. It went into the tall grass and then it got snatched up. Where is it?"

"Heh...mortal, you are wasting your time here. I can shatter your mind with a single blow; the only reason I have not done so already is because of your seeming immunity to fear!" The abyss shook slightly, and what seemed like laughter emerged from it.

Pan stared at the thing, eyebrows furrowed; what was it talking about? "If you're trying to say-"

The creature interrupted him. "I can see that you have no idea what I am saying...very well. Mortal, look at your companions."

Wary, Pan did so, and got a rather unpleasant shock; both Shadow, Lucy, and Jacob were seemingly frozen in fear, their eyes wide.

"Shadow?" asked Pan mentally, sending a shockwave through their connection. There was no answer, and Pan swore briefly, looking back at the black wall with blazing eyes.

"What-have-you-done?!" He asked through gritted teeth.


	8. Chapter Eight: A Grove

**-a/n-**

**The first bit of this was supposed to be in chapter seven, but that would have been ridiculous so I changed it. Inconsistencies in chapter length is/are fun!**

** Wolf: Sad Knight is sad.**

**-TDK**

The Illusion wall seemed to shift for a split second; however, Pan was fine, but the abyss was turning away.

"Hey!" Pan shouted furiously. "Where're you going?!"

The eldritch creature turned, and clicked something in a language he did not understand. "Boy, you are nowhere near powerful enough to fight me now...yet, you show intrigue." A short, stubby arm seemed to stretch out from the void, and snap its fingers. The result was a small host of large, red spiders, who scurried from the bushes, dozens of Pokemon wrapped in spiderweb on their back.

Pan almost gasped, but kept his calm; he could see Connor in one of the wrapped-up parcels. Yet, surely, this was a trap...

"We were not responsible for the stealing of these Pokemon," stated the abomination calmly, turning to leave with its horde. "A group of people in ridiculous blue costumes were stealing the Pokemon...so, we decided to safeguard them."

Pan bit his lip; the thing wasn't telling him something, that was for sure. "Why didn't you kill me?" He asked in a small voice.

The void did not turn around, but disappeared into the trees with a final "Some things are too interesting to kill".

Pan waited until the entire host of insects had gone, and all of his teammates had reawoken; they found him moodily picking apart the strings of a coccoon.

"Pan!" shouted Shadow, bounding over to him. "I-I don't believe it!"

He blinked apathetically, sighing. "So...you guys saw it too?" Pan asked in a low voice.

"Oh, we sure did!" gushed Lucy, scurrying onto his hand and beaming up at him. "Pan, that was amazing!"

He was bewildered; hadn't they seen him, not even worth being killed by a bunch of Bugs?

"Kid, I know what yer' thinkin'," said Jacob roughly, "And it ain't right. We were all frozen in fear; not only were you able to move, but you stood up to that thing and ya sassed it!"

Pan blinked owlishly. "You really think so?"

Shadow snorted. "Of course we do, but there's a more pressing issue at hand."

Jacob shook his head, picking up a coccoon gingerly with his pincers and putting it on his back. "We can get the coccoons like this; it'll take a while, though."

"I wasn't talking about that," replied Shadow impatiently, working together with Lucy to roll another one of the Ariados-wrapped bundles onto the Durant's back. "What's worrying is why Pan was able to stand up to that thing."

Pan frowned. "Why's that important?"

"Because, kid..." Jacob fixed one carapace'd eye on Pan. "Where I come from, we don't worry about the bad things; we worry about the people who can beat the bad things."

"Er..sorry, what?" asked Pan.

"In layman's terms, if you managed to stand up to something that dark, then you have to be dark yourself," said an unfamiliar voice, stepping out from behind a tree which looked much like himself. It was the Sudowoodo, the traitor who had almost gotten them killed.

"You!" snarled Pan, grabbing the rock-tree by the trunk and slamming him against the ground. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

The Sudowoodo wasn't fazed by this rather rough welcome; however, Jacob and Lucy were.

"Kid, what'd you do that for?!" clicked Jacob angrily, prying Pan from the mimic, who stood up slowly.

"Ah! Pan, please, don't!" Lucy said simultaneously, cringing.

"Jacob-Lucy-this-thing-" Pan struggled for words, going red as he looked at the Sudowoodo, who had a smug expression on its rocky face. Unable to take it, he finally burst out with "Do you know what this thing has done?!"

Lucy looked at him, confused. "Pan -this Sudowoodo is the protector of the forest! He's been fighting off that thing for...well...ever since it started!"

The Sudowoodo dusted itself off, taking its time answering.

"From your reaction," it drawled, "I gather you've met my son, eh?" The rock shook its head, arranging its features into what could have been sadness on an organic Pokemon.

"Your son..." Pan trailed off as he realized, with a sort of bewildered humor, that the Sudowoodo he had mistaken for the Pokemon who had betrayed them actually had completely different features than their 'guide'. This Sudowoodo had three yellow dots on his forehead, and beat-up skin; their traitorous guide had a diamond pattern of green dots on his forehead, and no wear and tear from having supposedly lived in the forest.

Shadow chortled, inspecting the Sudowoodo. "Yes," mused the Zorua, "I realized that from the start...now, what exactly is your name?"

The Sudowoodo grinned down at the Illusion-fox -at least, Pan thought it was a grin- and shook Shadow's paw. "You can call me Nask," said the Sudowoodo with an avalanche-like laugh.

"That's all nice and dandy," snapped Jacob, whose back was now covered with cocoons, "but could ya give a hand?"

Nask looked at the Durant and laughed again, shaking the top of his body in what Pan assumed was a shake of the head. "You know you can open the coccoons, right?" asked the Sudowoodo, amused. "And then they'll walk alongside you?"

Pan, Shadow, Jacob and Lucy looked at one another, sheepish; they hadn't thought of that...

Nask became serious, glancing about the forest. "Come on, quickly; we have to send these guys back through the forest and then go after that thing."

There was dead silence for a moment, in which Pan stared at the Sudowoodo incredulously.

"You're kidding, right?" asked Pan, half-expecting Nask to laugh and pat him on the shoulder.

"I've been tracking that thing for the past week," replied the Sudowoodo, dead serious. "I ain't giving up now, especially not now that I've got somebody who can resist its fear on my side."

"B-but-" Pan spluttered. Shadow, seeming not to care that Nask wanted the Champion to risk his life chasing down some sort of shadowy entity, cocked his head to the side, looking at the Sudowoodo with interest.

"By the way," put forth Shadow, "what exactly is 'it'?"

"I would assume some sort of revenant, or otherwise ghost," clicked Jacob, now undoing the coccoons.

Nask did his strange head shake again. "I doubt that its actually some sort of supernatural creature; the first rumors of its existence came into circulation about a week and a half ago, the same time that we heard of an explosion on an island past the lake, and a week after those strange men in blue, knight-like uniforms, arrived in Accumula Town."

"So...they're connected?" asked Pan.

"I don't know," frowned Nask. "It was first sighted wreaking havoc in the woods on either side of the lake; the insects in these woods have been flocking to it -if not for its destruction of its own allies, the thing might have had its own army at this point."

"So what, it's some sort of bug?" asked Shadow.

"Could be, what with all the insects getting attracted to it," replied Jacob, now having ripped open most of the coccoons; the Pokemon inside were slowly stirring.

Pan looked at the Durant, remembering that he'd never heard Jacob's story. "So..er..how did you lose again?"

"Didn' lose," muttered Jacob roughly. "I got stabbed a'cuz I was shootin' off my mouth every which way that I'd beat Burgh so easily, sayin' I was master o' the bugs..." He shook his steely head. "So when I staggered out 'the bar, drunk as anything, some guy lurched out and knifed me," Jacob finished roughly.

"That's...that's terrible, Mr. Jacob," murmured Lucy softly. The tiny Joltik scuttled next to one of the Durant's eyes and hugged it. Jacob looked positively alarmed at this show of affection and gave a start; meanwhile, Nask laughed harshly.

"Now that particular bit of heart-clenching history is done and over with," said Nask, green eyes hard, "I believe we should be on our way. If we manage to catch that thing before it manages to get too far away, we can stop it from corrupting the rest of the environment."

"What about the others?" asked Shadow with a jerk of his head. "How are they going to get out of this maze of a forest?" The Zorua was, of course, referring to the other Pokemon, many of whom were just beginning to wake up -and among the dozens of Unovan Pokemon, Pan noticed one familiar face.

"Connor!" shouted Pan, cupping his hands in front of his mouth and waving. The Charmander waddled over, a worried expression on his face.

"Er-Jacob, Lucy, this is Connor," said Shadow, realizing that Pan wasn't going to introduce them. "Connor -Jacob, Lucy."

Connor shook the Durant's front-left leg, a closed expression on his face. "Pan..." murmured the Charmander in a low voice, eyes darting from side to side. "I need to...talk to you."

Pan shook his head firmly. "Whatever you need to say to me can be said in front of everyone," he replied firmly.

Connor grimaced, but did not object. "When I fell into the grass, somebody put what I think what was a chloroformed rag to my nose, and I passed out...the next thing I knew, I was in that...thing's lair, and I heard them talking."

Pan shook his head sadly, Jacob clicked his pincers in anger, Lucy did a somersault in sympathy, and Shadow growled; yet Nask showed no signs of righteous anger, or sadness -he looked eagerly at the Charmander.

"What did you find?!" He demanded.

Connor sneered at the Sudowoodo. "And who are you?" He asked rudely.

"Oh, right. Connor -Nask. Nask -Connor." Pan put his hands in his pockets, staring at the emerging Pokemon.

Connor rolled his eyes. "As I was saying...There was this giant Beedrill, right? And it said 'what if we could get our hands on it?' and it was talking to a Butterfree, who said 'no way, what would happen to us? Look at it.' And then an Ariados came in, snapped at both of them for chit-chatting, and wrapped me and all the other Pokemon up."

Nask scratched the top of his body, concentrating. "So...then...that would imply that that thing has some sort of item...and perhaps its powerful?" Nask finished, bewildered.

Connor nodded. "That's the conclusion I came to, as well."

Pan started to say something -but all thought was driven out of his mind as he realized that all of the coccoons had hatched.

More than a dozen Pokemon stood in front of them, bewildered; fiery pigs, otters, and grass-snakes alike, as well as gray-green birds and tough-looking Pokemon with a girder in each hand.

Jacob quickly took charge, walking in front of the Pokemon and clicking his pincers as a call to attention.

"Alright!" clicked Jacob. "Listen up; do any of you know the way out of this forest?"

Two of the birds hesitantly raised a wing, and the rest of the Pokemon shuffled their feet. Jacob frowned.

"Alright. You'll have to get yourselves out of the forest!" announced Jacob. "Your trainers will be waiting for you in the Pokemon Center in Accumula!"

The Pokemon went into an absolute frenzy; more than one fainted at the mere thought of being 'wild' once more.

"What are we going to do?" muttered Pan. "We can't just let 'em get killed by whatever else is in the forest..."

Nask frowned, rubbing the top of his head. "How about this...you" -here he pointed to Lucy with one branch-like arm- "can lead them out of the forest. We'll pursue that thing to its lair -how does that sound?"

Pan shook his head in disbelief. "Are you crazy?" He asked incredulously. "Lucy could die!"

"No, Pan...it's fine," said Lucy in a small voice. "I-I'll guide them back..."

Seeing Pan's mouth opening, Shadow intervened. "Let her go, Pan. It's the most logical choice; we can't waste any time, and honestly, Lucy wouldn't be much help in the fight against that thing."

Pan opened and closed his mouth like a fish; as much as he didn't want to lose Lucy, he had to agree with Shadow. "Fine..." said Pan, defeated.

As he watched Lucy go off with the rest of the unwrapped Pokemon, though, Pan couldn't help but feel a twinge of unease, as though something bad were about to happen. Sighing, he shook his head, and shot a glare at Nask.

"What are we going to do now?" demanded Pan.

"We track it," replied Nask coolly. "You and him" -here he pointed to Shadow- "Can sit on top of the Durant, and I'll lead the way; it shouldn't be hard to track that thing down, as much as it leaves a miasma of death and disease in its wake."

Ever curious, Shadow asked "In that case, why do you need to go in front?"

"I can carry you if you'd like," said Jacob, "if that's the issue."

Nask looked at the three of them, and shook the top of his body from side to side. "There's something all of you need to understand," began Nask, "we may not survive this -and in case some sort of trap is set up, I'll be the first one to die."

And with that, the Sudowoodo turned, and set off across the clearing, seemingly uncaring of his fate. Pan made to get on top of Jacob, but the Durant shook his steely head, eyes narrowing.

"There's something that guy isn't telling us," clicked Jacob.

"What do you mean?" asked Pan, confused; was Nask a double agent, or was he missing something.

"Nobody gives in to the idea of death that easily," explained Shadow coldly, eyes on the Sudowoodo as Nask crossed the clearing. "Either he's just insane..."

"...or even worse, he doesn't care," finished Jacob grimly. However, in spite of this disturbing possibility, Pan and Shadow still clambered on top of Jacob, and the Durant quickly caught up to Nask.

"Get on," said Pan suddenly.

"I already told you-" started Nask, but Pan silenced him with a hand.

"We'll cover more ground," said Pan gruffly, resolutely not looking at the Sudowoodo, "after all -we can't let that thing escape."

Nask shrugged, and clambered on. Despite what Pan had said, the Sudowoodo knew all too well that his four companions were extremely suspicious of him -let them be.

"All that I need to do is fulfill my mission..." murmured Nask under his breath. After all, it didn't matter whether he was alive or dead at the end of this; all that mattered was that the Egg was safe.

"What's that?" asked Shadow, suspicious.

"Go through those woods," said Nask, pointing towards the left side of the clearing. His mind on other things, Jacob had been unconsciously wandering towards the right side of the clearing.

"Right," muttered Jacob, setting off at a brisk pace in the right direction.

Shadow's eyes narrowed; the Sudowoodo hadn't answered his question, though Nask had clearly cringed from him when he'd asked. Two could play at that game; Shadow settled into a more comfortable position, unconcernedly licking a paw.

The more they followed the trail, the more devastated the forest became; trees gave way to pus-filled stumps, soil to melted-away skeletons and sickly soil, and the sky from a dark blue to deepest purple.

"I can't go on," announced Shadow abruptly, after roughly half an hour of trekking through the woods. "It's the air...it burns my lungs." As if to prove this, he coughed violently, doubling up.

"Oh, it can't be that bad," protested Nask, inspecting the Trainer.

"He just coughed blood!" cried Pan indignantly, noticing a thin spattering of blackish-red blood on the Zorua's paw. "Of course it's 'that bad'; Jacob, you have got to turn back."

"Yeah..." Connor leaned over the side of the Durant and vomited, before toppling backwards into the ground.

"No...can...do...mate..." clicked Jacob weakly, before falling over onto his side, the soil hissing where it met his steel carapace.

"Jacob!" Cried Pan, shaking the Durant in panic. There was no response, and Pan scrambled off of the Durant's back hastily, not caring as the acidic soil burned a hole through the seat of his pants.

"Pan...sorry..." Shadow coughed once, before falling flat on his face.

As if in a dream, Pan watched in awful fascination as the small Zorua slid slowly down the Durant's side, leaving a small trail of blood.

"Sh-shadow?" asked Pan in a small voice, prodding the Zorua; no dice. "SHADOW!" He screamed, as there was no response from the small, furry body. Clutching his head, Pan turned to Nask, in a rage.

"Calm down," said Nask, suddenly frightened -not for his life, of course, that the boy would go crazy and not fulfill his mission.

"You..." seethed Pan, in a deadly rage. "You did this!" He lunged at the Sudowoodo, who neatly sidestepped, and Pan went face-first into the ground, where he lay, sobbing. "You killed them!" Pan spat, eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot.

"Calm down!" Nask laid a hand each on Shadow and Jacob, listening.

"Wha-" Pan started, but was interrupted by the Sudowoodo.

"I said shut up!" Nask shook his head, allowing his hands to come back to his sides. "They aren't dead..."

Pan gasped. "That's-"

"...But they may very well be," finished the Sudowoodo, shooting a glance at Pan. "I think they may be in a coma; we should get moving."

Paralyzed with a flood of emotions, Pan nodded, and they set off into the woods. Taken aback by the sudden diagnosis, he hadn't asked the strange Nask how he knew, just by placing a hand on the two, whether or not they were alive. Had he himself laid an ear to the Pokemon's chests, he would have been perhaps driven insane with loss -and Nask didn't want that.

The being whom Pan had thus far seen only behind a wall of Illusion perked up, and it straightened.

The insects who served it cringed, backing away from their deadly master; much like Pan, they saw it only behind a wall of its own creation. After all, the being had reasoned when it had created the wall around itself, what was the point of exerting control over an area if all of its inhabitants died in terror as soon as they saw you? None -absolutely none.

And it was for this reason that the being had created such a wall; however, it could manipulate the barrier of sound and sight as it wished, thus easily destroying any foe it had. The strategy had worked incredibly well thus far; after showing its true form to a village of red cricket-like insects, the enigmatic creature had quickly garnered a large following. While there had, of course, been much more opposition than support, all of the eldritch being's enemies had quickly been dispatched with a lowering of the barrier, or a simple spoken word.

All of them, that was, until now. It had been on one of its routine strolls through the forest, making sure that all of the forest's residents were under its command, and suddenly, it had seen a group of men and women in blue knight-like uniforms leading a large group of creatures through the forest. That, of course would not do -it was the only one in control in the forest, and no strange group of thieves would steal that title from it.

So it had destroyed them with its presence, and gotten its spider-like minions to wrap up the unfortunate creatures in webs. Some of the insects had even been impertinent enough to ask if the creatures would join their cause -idiots, the lot of them. Didn't they realize that any fighting 'Pokemon' -as their slave-drivers called them- would have violence bred into them, and would surely fight and die? No, much better to simply bide its time and wait until a slave-driver came calling, then have them conveniently 'discover' the creatures in the forest, conveniently without any memory of what had happened. No mess, no nasty questions asked -a perfect plan.

At least...it had been a perfect plan. The slave-driver who had come calling was strange; he was capable of communication with not only his slaves, but with creatures whom he had not yet captured. Even more strange, the slave-driver had not given up, as most of his kind was wont to do when faced with a challenge such as making his way through the forest alone, but merely persevered. Of course, that strange fox-creature may have been somewhat of a help, but the fact remained that the boy had kept going.

This, in and of itself, was dangerous to the safety of the Orb, and so the being had decided to personally destroy the boy. After all, there was no telling how one of its minions could botch the job, and letting the boy escape was out of the question. It should have been simple; go in, show the boy its form, and get out. And yet...it was not so.

For starters, the boy had somehow attracted the attention of two wild creatures, a Durant and a Joltik, and managed to convince them to help him without the use of a mind-breaker -for that was what the creatures of Unova called the strange ball-like devices- or some sort of drug. This, in and of itself, was not remotely worrying; it could dispatch the boy, the other creatures being unfortunate casualties.

However, when the being had revealed itself to the group, they had acted as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Upon questioning of one of its minions, it had realized that the strange fox-creature had somehow veiled its image through some sort of illusionary wall. Nothing like its own, of course; the shield the being had cast around itself was more subtle, and required no effort to change -it was more of a one-way mirror, really. The fox-creature had done something immensely different, essentially mentally putting a veil in front of its image.

While this was interesting, and of great import to the creature, the fox-creature had been sloppy; the veil shielded only its visual image, and did absolutely nothing to block its voice. So it had spoke, taunting the boy; after all, its voice was just as deadly as looking upon the creature, breaking the minds of any being who heard it. At first, it had seemed as though the slave-driver had been regularly affected, falling to his knees, and the creature's mind had turned to the task of breaking the minds of the boy's companions.

And then...something happened. It was unexplainable, unimaginable, impossible. One second the creature had been able to see the flow of the eldritch energy that was a byproduct of its voice, the energy flowing into the boy and crumbling the walls of his mind, and the next -nothing. Oh, the energy had still been there, and the boy wasn't blocking the horror by any means. Rather, the terror was not affecting him specifically; where the boy had been a split-second before, there was just a void, a crudely cut-out patch of space -and it was into this space that the energy had flowed.

All of the being's energy had been directed into the abyss, and when it had tried destroying the slaves -zilch, zero, nothing. All of the gruesome radiation had simply flowed into the abyss, and the miniscule amount that had flowed past had just barely stunned the boy's companions. It were as though the cut-out in the world were a shield, blocking all of the creature's energy. Even that pesky Sudowoodo, who had been defying it for weeks, had been protected.

And then, of all things, the boy had been perfectly fine, even standing up for himself! The abomination had been shocked, and had tried again, with the same, fruitless results. The mind-breaking substance had once more been redirected to some other portion of the world, and the slave-driver and his slaves had been perfectly fine. For the barest sliver of an instant, the being had doubted its power; was the Orb, perhaps, defective? But no -it was just as terrifying as ever; the power simply wasn't reaching the boy.

A few retorts later, it had been forced to hand over the creatures, and leave. Not by the boy, of course, but by its own curiosity. Here was a living being, and a human, what was more, who had managed to stand up to it; what was to be gained from killing it? Nothing -even without the power of the Orb, the creature was powerful enough in its own right to defeat one measly human- and everything could be gained from studying the boy.

So -yes, it had retreated, to here, the withered grove that the entity called its home. It had ordered its minions to alert it if the boy and his companions came, and thought. And just seconds ago, its minions had alerted it of just that; the boy was just at the edge of the grove.

It rose, radiating a terrifying aura, and smiled ghoulishly at the sight of the boy, who was standing, next to that annoying Sudowoodo, at the edge of its domain.

"Welcome, boy..." And now, sadly, was the time to eliminate the human; after much pondering, it had come to the conclusion that the Orb was more important than research, and since the slave-driver threatened the safety of the Orb, he had to be killed.

The boy gulped, clearly afraid, and shouted something back at it -insignificant. It prepared to draw back its shield -for the crude veil was no longer around it- and was about to destroy the boy-and then. The Orb, wonderful-artifact-shiny-hope-dream that it was, had told the being, in no uncertain terms, to challenge the boy. It was necessary, the Orb announced, for the preservation of the Orb's safety, and for the being's safety. Very well; the Orb was, after all, always right.

"You are lucky..." It began.

"You are lucky..." Came the awful voice, and Pan blinked. About to ask the thing why exactly he was lucky, a warning leaf-hand from Nask stopped him, and he kept his silence.

"...I have chosen not to kill you; rather, to set you a challenge."

Pan raised an eyebrow; what on earth was going on? He'd heard stories of villainous teams in far-off places issuing challenges to would-be heroes instead of attacking them outright, but never actually thought it was true. Yet here, in front of him, was a living, breathing example.

"Here are the terms; in the middle of my body-"

"What body?" Pan interrupted in spite of himself; instead of Shadow's Illusion-wall, there appeared to be a haze blocking his view of the creature. He had no idea where he was coming from, but wasn't complaining.

"-Oh, yes." The haze seemed to ripple, and a harsh laughter reached his ears, a thousand cruel nightmares made audible. "Careful, boy...you might get a little bit scared..."

Nask made a sort of rattling sound, which Pan supposed was the Sudowoodan equivalent of a whimper, and attempted to fit himself behind Pan. The latter, meanwhile, sneered at the haze, masking his fear with a false bravado.

And then...the haze was gone, and hell was revealed.

The thing was some sort of pillar of madness, every nightmare that had ever been dreamed of squished into one column of terror. Ghoulish zombies with rotting limbs and enormous boils, fountains gushing rusty blood, enormous centipedes with legs dripping an acidic venom, gigantic snakes with spikes as tall as a person, long and slimy tentacles that drifted sinisterly through the air; all of these and billions more were squashed into a column that rose hundreds of feet into the air, clearing the trees and looking for all the world like a monument to all things demonic.

At the thing's front was an open, rotting ribcage, where a single, enormous orb, black as the void and full of swirling mists, lay. As Pan stared at it, sickeningly fascinated by the orb's mesmerizing appearance, he realized that the mists shifted, revealing horrific sights for just an instant, before the dark mists once more closed over the nightmare-sphere.

And just as Pan dimly thought that any living creature would be lucky to escape the sight of the abomination without dying in fright, it got worse. With a gruesome splintering sound, a long limb broke away from the column of terror. Giant, bulbous centipedes, building-long snakes with huge fangs, rotting zombies with bloodshot eyes, skeletons in death rigor and many other horrors besides covered the limb, an enormous tentacle being the base.

"Well, boy?" The voice of the creature, he realized, was the sound of every single night-ghast that composed the entity speaking. Looking around, he realized that the unfortunate insects which had been on either side of him while still not being behind the entity had frozen expressions of horror on their face, now lying on the ground in piles.

"Can you see now?" The horrors began to laugh once more, the same harsh, cruel laughter. Pan realized that the sounds should have been even more scary now that he had an image to match them to, but once again -he simply wasn't affected. His brain recognized that what he was seeing and hearing was traumatizing, but the effects weren't reaching him...how strange.

"How do you like my body, boy?"

Pan raised an eyebrow coolly and sandwiched his fingers together, stretching them in front of him, palms out, as though calmly stretching.

"Well, to be honest," said Pan lazily, "it could do with some work."

"Work?!" The nightmare was angry, the individual horrors becoming enraged and leaning forward, as if to attack him. "You, a puny mortal, think that my form needs 'work'?!"

"Well, yes." He snorted derogatorily. "Honestly -who's scared of snakes anymore?" A certain exhilarating feeling in his chest, the kind that he usually felt when spitting in the face of danger, made him start walking, circling around the creature as though inspecting it, hands behind his back. Feeling more confident than he had since he'd entered the forest, Pan began a stream of biting comments.

"Your centipedes look like they'd be better off in a zoo -same with your toads. And -come on, zombies? Really? They would be scary, if not for the fact that they keep bumping into the skeletons and knocking off bones." The creatures in question looked at themselves, starting to get uneasy. The centipedes wriggled, uncomfortable, and tried to hide behind their neighbors. The toads croaked sadly, looking at each other with expressions that said: "I knew it. We're a joke." Meanwhile, the skeletons started up a bone-shatteringly loud argument -literally, some of the skeletons crumbled into pieces from the exertion- with the zombies over territorial rights.

Starting to get the feel for his jibes, Pan became more outgoing, jeering at the entity, who was now starting to shake in rage.

"Oh look, it's a tentacle -like that hasn't been done to death. Any trainer who's ever seen a patch of water's seen a Tentacruel, and lemme just fill you in: they do a better job of it than you do. Seriously, you should get a new nightmare-orb; I think this one's stuck in the past." Pan leaned back and laughed heartily, thoroughly enjoying himself.

And that was when the horror snapped; it could take as many insults as it wanted to, but the boy had gone too far by insulting the Orb, the wonder-of-light-power-shiny-beauty. The horrors roared in anger, and a horde of night-ghasts flowed up the side of one of the blasphemy-limbs, forming it into an uneven scythe of terror.

"ENOUGH!" The entity bellowed, the scythe-limb snapping to its side and destroying whatever it made contact with. "I will give you one chance," the creature spoke through gritted teeth, "to grasp the orb in the middle of my body and take it. If you fail, I will kill you."

Pan gulped. "Alright..." He said weakly, fixing the position of the orb in his mind. The nightmare-orb was about the size of a small horse, and was in the center of what could have been the ribcage of a Wailord, some fifty feet off the ground. A daunting task -yet Pan had never been more sure of his ability; had he not climbed Mount Pyre? Besides, there were plenty of footholds.

"Then try, mortal...and die trying."

Pan nodded nervously, and charged, sprinting towards the entity, his eyes on the foothold he intended to grab first: what appeared to be the elbow of an enormous skeleton. A few of the huge bees and butterflies started towards him, but were quelled by the scythe-arm; the creature wanted a one-on-one challenge, it seemed.

As he neared the elbow, Pan's adrenaline-fueled mind snapped back and forth between training in Mount Ember, and time seemed to slow down as his brain whirred through instructions. Running, speed up, jump, left foot pushes up, grab elbow, push off, swing-up. These instructions in his mind -which nobody else in his climbing group had been able to understand; indeed, nobody else went about the same process while climbing, instead making split-second decisions- Pan began climbing.

Pan sprinted up to the column, which was about twenty feet away, sped up, and then jumped, pushing off with a sneakered right foot. The giant spiders that made up the majority of the left column jeered at him, and the zombies leaned out, arms straining to grab him -indeed, one arm popped neatly off. As he jumped, his feet left the ground, and Pan quickly strained his left leg to its maximum height, finding the skull he had marked in his mind and pushing off of it. The skeleton who owned the skull chattered angrily, attempting to bite off his foot.

Luckily for him, Pan was wearing Hilbert's sneakers, built to withstand hail and sleet; even luckier, the skeleton's teeth slid off his ice-covered shoelaces. The skeleton, who had been straining to get out of the pile, fell out of the column due to its momentum, hitting the ground with a clatter. Pan barely registered this, focused on climbing the monstrosity, bringing his right foot up as he pushed off of the skull.

He was now completely in the air, within reach of the elbow -and he grabbed it with his right hand, fingers scrabbling for a hold on the smooth, time-worn bone -and failing. The monsters in the column jeered, the beast laughing via their harsh laughter, and for a split second, Pan was falling. And suddenly, his old nightmares came back, those he had had while on the two-week expedition up Mount Ember. He was falling, falling off the mountain, and all of the other climbers were laughing.

"Climber Pan has slipp'ry hands! Climber Pan has slipp'ry hands!" Chanted the other climbers, faceless and jeering.

Pan smirked; was this the best that nightmare-orb could do? He may have been scared of falling when he'd been thirteen in Kanto, youngest Champion at the time, but now he was seventeen -and instead of being scared of hitting the ground, Pan simply snapped his other arm up in what was called a "cobra-grab" due to its high speed and cobra-like position. The female instructor on the trip had taught it to him, after he'd confessed his fear of falling; if he fell, and was quick about his senses, she'd said, he could just grab like a cobra, and hang back on.

And, miraculously, he did, his left hand landing squarely on the elbow and pushing his entire body up. Pan's mind went into overdrive, realizing that the sudden tension would dislocate his shoulder. A dislocation meant not being able to climb -and in these circumstances, not being able to climb meant death. He had two options; try and quickly let go, and fall to his death -or improvise.

Pan decided to improvise, scrabbling his feet and pushing off of the back of an enormous black widow with both feet and tremendous force; the spider screeched in protest, shooting a web of spider-silk at him -it missed, thankfully. Barely noticing, he brought his right hand up to the elbow as well, so that both of his hands were on the elbow, and both of his feet were slightly away from the column and a bit under the elbow.

Thinking fast, Pan strained as hard as he could, leap-frogging up with both feet onto the elbow and landing squarely. However, he had no time to pause; the entire column was working against him, and he would bet anything that the skeleton was about to shake him off -he had to keep moving. Pan snapped his head up, scanning the fifteen or so feet between where he was, perched on the gigantic elbow, and the bottom of the huge ribcage, where he could snatch the nightmare-orb.

The results, delivered in the barest sliver of a second, were daunting; the entirety of the length was covered by a huge centipede, its back dripping with a dull purple poison. For an instant, Pan's mind faltered; surely there was no way his hands could survive contact with that stuff -and yet, it was the only way. He had to take his chances, bunching up the material of his sleeves to cover his hands, with the centipede. This entire survey, thought process, and decision took just a second; the skeleton was just starting to move its elbow outwards.

Mouth set in a grim, hard line, Pan frog-jumped off of the elbow, attempting to get a foothold in the cracks of the huge centipede's carapace; his feet caught, but he teetered, about to fall backwards. There was nothing for it; he quickly grasped the sleeves of his jacket, bunching it up so that his sleeves covered his hand, and grabbed the next crack in the poison-excreting insect's armor, barely hanging on.

After a second of breath-held anticipation, Pan gave a sigh of relief; there was no sensation of prickling on his skin, nor any hissing that would have come from acid dissolving the sleeves of his jacket. He quickly clambered up the side of the centipede, who was apparently oblivious to the human on its back and ignoring the cries of its fellow night-ghasts, feeling a rush of exhilaration; the bottom of the ribcage was within his grasp!

But the monsters had had enough; the giant skeleton whose elbow Pan had used as a temporary perch was now enraged. It clambered out of its position in the column, giving a rattling roar, and began to follow him, six arms quickly pulling it up the surface.

Pan started to panic; as he grabbed the nearest ribcage and pulled himself onto it, gasping for breath, his mind began to consider battle situations. While Pokemon Trainers were technically supposed to avoid violence with other Trainers if they could help it, some of the meaner Trainers he'd met simply didn't play fair, and so Pan had been forced to learn self-defense. While he wasn't bad at fighting, he doubted he'd be able to take down what was presumably the skeleton of a Machamp without some sort of dirty trick or being able to run away in time.

There was, of course, the possibility of simply running pell-mell towards the nightmare-orb and hoping that something would happen when he grabbed it -hopefully something that had to do with saving all of them, though that wasn't very likely- though that was quite risky. No, better to grab the orb, and try and jump or run past the skeletal superpower-Pokemon.

It was due to this that when Pan straightened up, he had a plan: unfortunately, sometimes even the best plans do not work, and this was one of those times. He had not counted on the huge skeleton's six arms; it was now pulling itself up to the mouth of the rib-cave.

While Pan realized this just a second after deciding on the plan, and whirled around, it was simply too late -the Machamp was already pulling itself up, and he realized that he wouldn't be able to push it off. With a rattling roar, the skeletal superpower leaped up into the mouth of the cave, all six arms flexing and completely blocking the exit.

Pan's mind attempted to find an escape route -but there was no gap between the Machamp's bones, and so, putting on what he hoped was a brave face, Pan made a 'come at me' motion with his left hand.

And the skeleton did just that.

The rib-cave sloped sharply upwards; of the twenty-five some feet up to the pearl, only the first five were even remotely flat. The last ten or so were essentially just a vertical wall; the bit in-between was half as long as it was tall. The 'mouth' of the rib-cave was roughly fifty feet tall, and seemed to be about seven or eight feet wide.

The skeletal Pokemon had positioned itself so that it took up almost all of the mouth of the rib-cave. While Pan hadn't seen many Machamp since Kanto -which had been about three years ago- he doubted those Pokemon would have been as large as this one. After all, Machamp didn't usually tower over Pan -who, as Hilbert, was about five and a half feet tall- and didn't take up five feet of space with their legs fully spread.

Even as a skeleton, the Pokemon was extremely imposing; its arms would surely have been corded with muscle when it was alive, and its torso was twice as wide as his. Pan gulped; all in all, he would have preferred an entire gang of the Two Island Terrors over this thing. However, he didn't have much time to consider this decision -after all, just then, the Machamp attacked.

It rushed forward, swinging a punch with one of its four hands; Pan side-stepped the blow, ducking under the curve of the Machamp's arm and planning to deliver a blow of his own. His plan was to attack it with an open palm, forcing it to stagger, and follow it up with a duck-and-sweep, then push the enormous skeleton off of the column and continue on his merry way.

Unfortunately, Pan hadn't counted on the skeleton's four arms; as soon as he went under the arm, the Machamp grinned savagely, and karate-chopped his side.

Now, this is not to say that Pan had no endurance whatsoever; he could take a relative pounding, but even regular superpower Pokemon would be stronger than any human -and this skeleton was not a regular Machamp. So when he was thrown to the side of the cage in a heap, gasping in pain, you couldn't blame him. In fact, the 'CRACK' that had echoed around the clearing, Nask watching in petrified silence, might have suggested a broken rib. Really, Pan was lucky to be alive.

The huge skeleton flexed its nonexistent muscles in pleasure, reveling in a victory well deserved, as well as the cheering of the nightmares around it, and prepared to deliver the finishing blow. The Machamp took a few swaggering steps and stood confidently over its victim, who was now gasping in pain and clutching his stomach, doubled over.

Then the skeletal superpower leaned down on one knee, as if proposing, and drew its fists back, unleashing a massive barrage of blows -over one thousand in the space of a second, in fact. Some of its punches missed, hitting the bones of the rib-cave and causing them to crack, which in turn released clouds of bone-dust.

When the smoke cleared, a roar of frustration went up from the night-ghasts and the Machamp alike; Pan was on the opposite side of the cave, bent low to the ground in a sprinting position.

An explanation, obviously, is due. When the skeleton had karate-chopped Pan's side, it had hit Hilbert's bag, cushioning the blow. Thinking fast, Pan had pretended to be severely injured, all the while planning his attack -and this time, his plan worked. As soon as the Machamp had let loose its volley of punches, Pan, realizing that the punches would hit everything on either side of him -due to the skeleton's lack of eyes and, as a direct result, lack of accuracy- had jumped to his feet from a lying-down position.

Using the Machamp's size against it, Pan had jumped through the gap in its legs, leaving behind his bag so that the skeletal Pokemon thought it was hitting something. While the smoke was clearing, he'd gotten to his feet, and just managed to get into a suitable fighting position when the smoke cleared.

The Machamp growled; since it had no idea what Pan had done to escape its attacks, its small brain -an unfortunate result of being a skeleton- had assumed that the pale-skinned boy was capable of magic. Due to this, it was not at at its best, shuffling warily and swingings a few loose punches as it and Pan circled each other.

After a few tense moments of circling, the Machamp, its back to the opening of the rib-cave, attacked, pounding forwards and swinging each of its four arms, one after another. Pan ducked and rolled to the side, thrusting both of his hands into the middle of the Machamp's empty ribcage and smashing apart the sides of the ribcage.

Split in two, the Machamp's top half teetered on the edge of the bottom of its ribcage before falling to the ground, and shattering. Without any brain governing them, the bones of its lower body fell as well, and shattered, leaving only a pile of bone-dust where once had been a mighty foe.

Pan stared at it, incredulous of his victory, and laughed.

"Is that really the best you can do?!" Still laughing, Pan spat to one side of the rib-cave, turning -amidst the angry cries of the night-ghasts, many of whom were hurriedly trying to extract themselves in an effort to get at him- and gazing upon the nightmare-orb.

From a foot away, it was even more terrifying; strangely, now that he was up close, it was just the right size to comfortably fit in his hand. The dark clouds that covered the surface of the nightmarish sphere were no longer shifting, now strangely still.

Pan shrugged, and wrenched the orb from its resting place as the nightmares screamed around him.

A second later, he regretted it.


	9. Chapter Nine: A Binding

**-a/n-**

**What follows is an abilitease. I am not proud of it, but it had to happen.**

**-TDK**

An elated scream came from the orb; a hellish, gruesome laughter that spoke of madness and death.

"Thou shalt perish..." It was not the voice of the nightmare-thing; Pan was quite familiar with that one. This was not the voice of a thousand, but the voice of one, one terrible being -one mad being.

Just as Pan was starting to regret his decision, something happened that made him regret it even more.

The sphere imploded, drawing in on itself until it was the size of a pea, and then exploding outwards with the force of a Hyper Beam. The explosion itself should have killed Pan, but it didn't; he was simply carried to the ground on a breeze, and deposited softly. A final curse, he would realize later; the being had doomed him to a fate worse than death.

Where the shockwaves of the sphere's explosion traveled through the column of madness, they dissolved the night-ghasts, winking the unholy beings out of the world, as if they had never truly been there to begin with. Perhaps they hadn't; he didn't really know, and he didn't really care. Within a second, the entire column had ceased to exist, and the shockwaves of the explosion had stopped traveling outwards.

An eerie silence fell, as both Pan and Nask gaped; the orb appeared to now be roughly a hundred or so feet in diameter, and the clouds which had covered its surface when it was much smaller were now starting to disappear.

"What was that, d'you reckon?" asked Pan nervously, edging away from the orb, which looked vaguely like a black sun, hanging in the air.

"I have no idea..." muttered Nask, transfixed. "Hey...good job back there."

"Thanks," replied Pan, slightly disturbed; why wasn't the Sudowoodo running away?

He was about to tell Nask that they should probably leave -and then the Sudowoodo walked forward, a strange expression on his face.

"Hey!" shouted Pan, running forwards to hold Nask in place. "Stop!"

The Sudowoodo turned, and Pan gasped, for there was a strange, demented expression on his face.

"Help...me..." whispered Nask -and then his hand, as if controlled by someone other than him, reached back, and touched the sphere.

The Sudowoodo was instantly absorbed, the only sign that the strange orb had just swallowed up a Pokemon a small slurping sound. And Pan would never forget what happened afterwards, for it changed the region of Sinnoh forever; the walls of the black-sun separated, sinking into the ground to leave twp shapes -two Pokemon- in the grove.

"Ah...look...'tis the human boy." The voice was the same which had told Pan he would perish when he had picked up the orb, and it seemed to be coming from the first shape. Both of the Pokemon seemed hazy, and distant; even when Pan squinted, he could not make out their shapes.

"What a fool...did he not know of the legends?" The second voice was sinister and low, and Pan gulped; clearly, here were two Pokemon -two very powerful Pokemon- who might just kill him.

Slowly but surely, he started to back away, one foot at a time. The movements were not unnoticed by the two shapes, who seemingly bellowed with laughter.

"Oh, look! He's trying to escape!" The second voice cackled. "What say you, hmm? Shall we let him go? Or tear him to shreds?!"

"We should let him go," boomed the first; it was a different voice -lower, not as insane. "No, kill him!" Now the first's voice was once again mad, and more high-pitched; double personalities, perhaps.

In that instant, all of Pan's courage disappeared; he did not want to die, and certainly not to a couple of insane Pokemon! Abandoning the grove, he turned on his heel and ran. Well, actually, it would have been better to say that he tried to run; he was caught and held in place by a sash of eldritch energy.

"Oh, no no no, little human!" The second creature drifted closer, and Pan realized that it didn't have legs; its body ended in a ragged band. "You can't escape...after all, we haven't thanked you for freeing us yet!"

Pan gulped, finding that he could speak; just as he had suspected, the two didn't affect him.

"I'll pass, thanks."

The two creatures turned to each other, shocked, and began to speak in a low, sibilant hissing, filled with clicks and croaks. After what seemed like an eternity, but what Pan knew could only have been a minute, the first turned to him.

"You are not afraid of us?" It asked, slightly confused. Bewilderment was not an emotion the duo felt often; while separated, each had experienced the emotion only once: on meeting each other. While together, they had also experienced it only once: when being bound. This, it seemed, would have to be another occasion.

"The Vessel said that you were immune to fear, but we never thought it could be true..." Murmured the second, drifting in a circular pattern around him. As much as Pan wanted to turn, to follow the levitating creature with his eyes, he knew that the first would strike him down without a second thought if he did.

"Not really." Seeing the second stop, and seemingly glare at him, Pan hurriedly amended his statement. "Well, I recognize that you're scary, but it just doesn't affect me. I'm sure it's nothing about you," soothed Pan.

"Hm...you know," spoke the second, turning to the first, "if we'd met the mortal back home, I would have kept him alive. But now..." It turned to Pan, and the Champion of Hoenn and Kanto could have sworn he saw a pitying expression on the ragged-looking entity's face -though that, of course, was impossible.

"We shall have to kill you," finished the second's mad personality.

"No!" Pan screamed, falling to the ground and curling up into a fetal position. "Please...don't!" He was completely at the mercy of these strange beings -and they were going to kill him. His life flashed before his eyes; he was a hero, a champion -and now, he was going to fall to these demons of fear.

Well, he was going to. But he didn't; after all, as the tale goes, that was when the Four intervened.

The first, a stocky dark-skinned man in baggy orange shorts and a white judo jacket, fell from what was seemingly the sky, letting out an almighty roar as he did so. Pan looked up, and his eyes widened; he managed to get out of the way just in time, forcing shaky legs into action and rolling away from the shadow on the ground, which increased in size as the fighting master neared the corrupted soil of the grove.

"What the..." The second, not realizing where the sound was coming from at first, looked up and flew backwards, clawing at his companion. "Get back!"

The elite landed on the ground like a gorilla; that is to say, knees up to his chest and hands above his head, as though about to deliver a smashing blow. Expecting him to roll, or in some way cushion his fall to the ground, Pan was thus surprised when the dark-skinned fighter simply landed on the ground, an impact which would have killed any regular person.

The man was apparently not regular; when he landed, the earth shook, masking his own, small, grunt, and where he landed, cracks spiderwebbed out from the site of impact; the longest just reached Pan's foot. Pan was lying down at the time, quivering in fear -and at least ten feet away from the man.

Getting over its initial shock, the second seemed to sneer at the man. "Is this the best this land has to throw against us?! One man?!"

The two laughed, and the man smirked, getting up. As he did so, Pan got a better glimpse at his features; the man wore a headband and bands around his shoulders, as well as orange, fingerless, boxing gloves. Around the middle of his loosely tied judo jacket were ten black belts -as far as Pan knew, there were less than eight styles of fighting which awarded belts, and he wore no shoes, making his fall from the sky even more miraculous.

"It is not just me." The fighter's voice was low, with just the barest hint of an accent from a sun-dried place, far from Unova, and throaty, as though many people had smashed his voicebox over the years.

Pan was about to say something; thank the man, perhaps, when he noticed that the ground near his feet was hard to see. He frowned, realizing that it was fog, and knelt down. The fog was unnaturally dark, and cloudy; most fog was wispy and grayish.

"What sorcery is this?!" Cried the second, noticing the fog as well, but seemingly uncaring.

"It's thickening!" Exclaimed Pan, his eyes widening. The term was incorrect; the fog was actually raising up in height, now at his knees, and still going.

The first cried, a mournful cry, and flew up into the air upon great, ragged wings, like some sort of pegasus. The second growled, and was forced to rise in the air; the fog was now up to Pan's shoulders, and he was starting to panic. What if the fog simply overtook them all, suffocating them? Yet his worries proved to be unfounded, for then the black fog began to move towards the center of the grove, a few feet to the right of the fighter.

It moved slowly at first, but picked up in speed, until there was a whirling cyclone of pitch-black fog next to the dark-skinned man, who was seemingly unconcerned by the whole afair, at least twenty feet into the air.

"Get back!" Shouted the second, careening away from the fog. Pan flinched, scrambling away as fast as he could, because the cyclone was starting to bulge in his center. The fighter, though, was still unconcerned -and then the cyclone burst.

The column of black fog flattened into a disk, and then the unnatural force that had been drawing the fog to that one specific spot apparently lessened its hold, for the fog flowed back into a sheet, and then fell back into the ground. Nobody, however, particularly noticed this, for the fog next to the fighter had formed into the shape of a girl. And as the unnatural mist dissipated, it left behind the girl herself, who blinked once.

"I botched it," mumbled the ghostly girl. She was quite a bit shorter than the fighter, with creamy skin and, Pan had to say, a rather curvy figure. Her theme seemed to be purple; purple dress that ended just below her waist, purple bow in her bowl-cut hair, purple shoes -the only outlier was her pair of black stockings. "There was supposed to be a gloomy sound effect."

The fighter patted her arm reassuringly. "Look, Ms. Shauntal, you are already a member of the Unovan Elite Four, and you hold one of the most prestigious positions in the world; does working in special effects really mean all that much to you?"

The attractive girl -Shauntal, Pan reminded himself; he couldn't go around naming people by their appearances- stamped her purple slippers on the ground. "Marshal, you know it means all that much to me! It's my dream; I just happen to be good with ghosts!"

Marshal shook his head in despair, clutching his headband with one muscled hand. "Ms. Shauntal, I won't argue with this anymore, because you and I have been through this quite a few times. But where are the others?"

Shauntal frowned, looking around. "I don't know -they should have been here."

The two beings, who had been watching this conversation with disgust, now settled back into their regular positions, though still wary of the ghostly fog.

"If that's all," drawled the second, "then shall we get on with killing you?"

Pan stared at the duo in astonishment. If they were confident enough to take on two of the Elite Four, then they had to be extremely powerful; it would be a twelve-on-two fight!

"Oh, no, it isn't all," replied Shauntal, squinting at a patch in the ground. "I believe that's Grimsley right there."

Pan and the two creatures swiveled around to look at the spot in the trees where Shauntal had pointed; meanwhile, the two members of the Elite Four continued their heated argument over whether or not the ghostly girl should pursue a career in movie-making.

He squinted, unable to see anything in the extreme darkness -but surely, something was there; after all, it was casting an enormous shadow, one which was at least as long as the length of the grove. In comparison, Pan's shadow was just eight or so feet long. Either whatever was casting the shadow was enormous, or the shadow had been elongated in some manner.

As they watched, the shadow shortened in length, until it was slightly shorter than Pan's shadow. And then something rather strange happened, which caused Pan to gasp, and Shauntal to clap excitedly; the shadow picked itself up. Feature formed on the shadow, and it thickened, until it was in the shape of a man, about a half a foot taller than he was, who was smirking.

"Good job on the special effects, Shauntal," drawled this new Elite. "I rather liked the shadow myself; gives a rather dark air to everything, don't you think?"

The newcoming Master of Darkness wore a black suit with red cuffs over a high-collared white shirt, which went quite well with his black dancing slippers. Everything about him, from the angular cut of his suit, down to strangely pointed black hair, screamed dapper -other than his long, silky, yellow scarf, which was wrapped around his neck and yet still managed to trail to the ground.

Shauntal blinked excitedly, clapping her hands. "I'm glad you like it, Grimsley!"

"What kept you?" Boomed Marshal. "We got note of the power surge around five minutes ago, and you've only just arrived. What, were you in the casino again?"

Grimsley continued to smirk, and took his place next to Shauntal, his shoes clip-clopping on the purple soil. "No -I was doing a card trick."

A vein in the dark-skinned fighter's neck bulged; it was clear that Grimsley's gambling habits were nothing new to the rest of the Elites.

"Hah!" The second threw back its head with a laugh. "Is this our welcoming army?! A knock-kneed whore, a ridiculously clothed fighter, and a drunken gambler?" At this, the Elites stiffened; Shauntal straightened her back, and Pan began to hear the faint moaning of ghosts. Marshal growled, moving into a fighting position, and Grimsley threw his scarf around his shoulder, eyes crackling wrath and a dark aura forming around his body.

"No..." Came a faint voice. "They have me, as well."

The six of them turned, to see a strange figure walking sleepily out of the woods, a pink mist around her. The lady was in a pink nightgown, and wore a ridiculously round and fluffy hat. The other three were dressed for business, while she seemed to have just woken up. Her long blonde hair was a mess, reaching down to her knees, and her thin nightdress, with its pattern of bright-and-dark-pink polka-dots, seemed completely out of place in the grove.

"Nice to see you here, Ms. Caitlin," said Marshal gruffly.

"Were you sleeping?" Asked Grimsley mockingly, his head tilted to the side. It was clear that the four would have bantered for quite a while, for the psychic Caitlin was opening her mouth angrily, had the first of the creatures not interfered.

"Bring your best," It rumbled.

"We will destroy you..." And the second threw its head back, and started to cackle.

Marshal rotated his head, and cracked his knuckles. "I'll head in first. Caitlin and Shauntal, take up the rear and smoke 'em; Grimsley, bring in the shades." With that, the dark-skinned fighter reached into his sash and brought out two handfuls of blue-orange Pokeballs, which he then threw out to either side of himself.

The fight hadn't even started, and Pan was already confused; what did Marshal mean by 'smoke em'? Smokescreens, perhaps? And what did 'bring in the shades' refer to? The most literal translation was to bring in sunglasses -but that, of course, made no sense. Perhaps shade as in the darkness under an object? But -no, there was barely any sunlight as it was. Mystified, he decided to walk into the woods and observe from there; after all, it was obvious that he wouldn't be able to do anything in the fight.

Unfortunately for him, the mysterious duo had already thought of that; Pan was suddenly trapped, a blackish-grayish bubble around his entire body, and thrown off to one side. He didn't realize it at the time, but the answer was obvious; if the Elites saw him unaffected by fear, then they would ask him to fight -and then they would realize that anyone or anything behind him was also immune to terror. And this, of course, would take away the two being's advantage.

The second smirked, and flung up its ragged, claw-like hands while Marshal was talking, and a black wave radiated from its body.

"We have thee now, mortals," rumbled the first.

Pan flinched; while he didn't know what exactly the black wave was going to do, if the winged creature felt as though it was powerful enough to take out all of them, it had to be bad news.

Grimsley laughed, also flinging out a few black Pokeballs. "Hah! Were you expecting for us to fall to our knees, convulsing from nightmares?!" Asked the Master of Darkness in a mocking voice. "We all took Courage Berries before we got here. Your fight won't be as easy as you expected, now will it?"

The second opened its mouth in an angry retort, but quickly closed it, for the Pokeballs of Grimsley and Marshal -all one dozen or so of them- had opened.

On either side of Marshal were a whole host of Pokemon. A white-furred monkey-like creature, with shackles on all of its limbs and no tail, opened its mouth and screeched at the two -a Primeape, whose species were infamous for specializing in going completely berzerk and being immune to pain. A blue-skinned and muscle-filled version of the skeleton Machamp he'd just fought flexed its muscles; they were incredibly strong, and could quickly deliver many blows. A sumo-wrestler-like Pokemon, with enormous orange hands and a blue ponytail, stomped its feet on the ground, thrusting its arms towards either side of it -something that Hariyama were usually noted for.

Meanwhile, a sepia-brown ogre-like creature, purple bands adorning its limbs, grasped a concrete pillar in each hand, and roared, its voice like the grinding together of gravel. Two Pokemon, dressed in black-and-white martial arts outfits, one red and one blue, stood side by side, one stooping low as if to throw an enemy, the other angled so as to dart forward and chop the two creatures to pieces. Next to them, a purple-furred Pokemon stood, its brush-like hands pawing lazily at the air.

On either side of Grimsley were even stranger-looking Pokemon; a purple-and-yellow cat and black-and-white dog stood side by side, purring and growling in unison. Two Pokemon flew overhead; an enormous crow which looked as though it was wearing a formal suit, and a black-pink vulture with a bone in its hair. As Pan watched, a cactus walked in front of the two beasts, stretching its arms and sending pin needles into the ground, and an incredibly angry crab scuttled off to wave an angry claw at the birds circling over head, before hammering the ground with one enormous, red claw.

As if the onslaught of Pokemon was not enough, Shauntal and Caitlin were now muttering spells; Grimsley, for his part, was concentrating on what seemed like the ground, causing his shadow to elongate, and split off into other shadows, which then rose from the ground as replicas of his Pokemon. As this was going on, the two women pulled handfuls of Pokeballs out of their bags, calmly releasing them.

Caitlin seemed to have a whole host of Pokemon with her; Pan immediately recognized a yellow-brown mustached Pokemon, who was holding a silver spoon in each hand, as an Alakazam, a Pokemon with the mind of a supercomputer. Among the familiar faces were a pink cat which he realized was an Espeon, a white-cloaked green creature, levitating just above the corrupted ground, which could only be a Gardevoir, and a strange-looking green bird which had to be a Xatu.

There were also stranger Pokemon, however; a curled-up tapir-like pink beast exuding a strange pink smoke from its forehead, and a black, goth-looking astral being with a teired dress. A Pokemon, which at first sight Pan thought was just a pile of green goo, but then raised itself from the ground, bouncing happily, that seemed to be composed entirely of cell-like structures, a mouse-like creature controlling the whole affair, waved to an equally strange creature raising itself off the ground. It looked entirely alien, with a brown body, enlarged head, and multi-colored flashing lights covering its body.

Two other Pokemon flew out of their Pokeballs and went into the air. The first was relatively normal -at least, as far as Caitlin's Pokemon went- and appeared to be a bat with the head and tail of a pig, and flapped its wings happily, squealing. The second...not so normal. Three wing-like appendages extended from its body, which appeared to be a mishmash of symbols overlapping each other on one large head, but the being itself simply levitated in the air.

Shauntal had just as many Pokemon, most of which floated in some way or another. The first, a purple-pink floating ghost which appeared to be wearing a hat and cloak, rose up into the air, followed by its comrades, a giant pink jellyfish with frilled tentacles and a floating chandelier, which appeared to have a face and flames burning in its lamps. Meanwhile, a gray voodoo doll and blue-gold coffin walked -or in the coffin's case, hopped- their ways over to a large purple Pokemon, with ruffled fur and stubbly limbs.

They were joined by a basket-less, giant, purple balloon, a ghostly cyclops, and an ice-kimono-wearing hollow shell of a Pokemon. All three floated, but the first floated up to join its companions, while the latter two simply levitated a few inches off the ground.

Shauntal and Caitlin quickly got to murmuring instructions, eyes flickering around the glade, as did Grimsley and Marshal. As this was going on, a black fog and purple mist crowed the clearing, forming into copies of the Pokemon of Shauntal and Caitlin, respectively.

Pan smirked inside of his bubble; it was over. He did a quick head-count: thirty-two powerful Pokemon were assembled in the glade, against two nameless entities, whose forms were now revealed by the smoke.

The first was a large, centipede-like being with six, short, stubby legs and two large wings. The second appeared to be some sort of cloak-wearing specter, with a fog billowing from the back of its head and claw-like hands. The two hissed at the appearance of the fog and mist, quickly moving out of reach of it; the first flapped its wings, while the second careened away at a sharp angle.

Suddenly, without a word, the battle began.

Four things happened in short order.

First, Marshal and his host of fighting Pokemon leaped forwards, limbs in action, and fell upon the dark entity.

The purple-furred elegant-looking fighter dashed in, ducking under the ragged one's pulse of darkness and slashing it with one long paw. The being faltered, and the Machamp was on it in a second, holding down the thing's limbs with all four of its arms.

"Tch!" The second's breath was knocked out of it by the Primeape, who had apparently gone berzerk.

The monkey leaped into the air, coming down with a heavy smash and then trying to rip off part of the entity's body; it failed. The nightmare's body glowed, and the Primeape was thrown several feet in the air. Luckily, the monkey fighters were a very agile species, and the Primeape landed on its hands, shaken but otherwise unharmed.

Marshal's Pokemon were momentarily stunned. After all, the dark being had just thrown off the Primeape, the strongest of its species, without blinking an eye; it was clearly very powerful. However, they were well trained, and jumped straight back into battle.

The Darkness -for that was what Pan had decided to call it- didn't stop with the Primeape, hurling the Machamp off as well, and getting up, radiating a bursting aura. The Hariyama, not willing to let the strange being counter-attacked, dashed forward, thrusting its palm straight forward into the Darkness, and Pan grinned savagely. This, surely, was the end of the strange creature; he'd never seen anything survive a well-trained Hariyama's arm thrust.

The dark entity was not fazed, merely looking down at the sumo wrestler's arm and snorting dismissively.

"Begone," It growled, and the Hariyama was thrown backwards as well, landing with a grunt on its behind.

The defeated Pokemon made to get up, but the sepia-colored ogre stopped it, advancing, and the rest of the Pokemon suddenly turned silent. Pan couldn't explain how he knew, but the ogre just seemed to be the most powerful out of the lot, and as it advanced, the rest of the Elite's army became quiet; it was just the ogre and the Darkness, facing off in the clearing.

"Is this the best you-" The dark being, hoping to taunt the concrete behemoth into attacking, was thus completely surprised when the sepia titan attacked. The onslaught was brutal, the ogre leaping forward and slamming the Darkness to the ground with one concrete girder; the golem did not, apparently, keep with circling around its foe before beginning the fight.

Pan's eyes widened; well, that was a hell of a way to fight -yet even as he thought that the Darkness was defeated, it got right back up, one side of its head oozing a slimy blood. With a savage roar, it counterattacked, bringing its claws to the middle of its chest and firing off a concentrated beam at the ogre, who clumsily dodged. The beam instead hit the Primeape, who gave a startled screech before being slammed into a tree and falling to the ground, dead.

It was the wrong move.

The gray goliath attacked with a savage roar, spinning one beam of concrete around before slamming it into the side of the creature, who was knocked a ways to the side. Not yet done, it advanced, repeatedly slamming the Darkness in the chest with its girders, a relentless attack that forced it back to where the ghostly dragon was.

"Well?" Marshal asked. "How do you like them apples?"

The Darkness, now gushing black slime, smiled terrifyingly. "I like them just fine," It whispered, suddenly sending forth another pulsing purple beam, one which took the ogre straight in the chest, vaporizing it instantly.

"You bastard!" Marshal shouted, galvanized, and rushed into battle. "Attack!"

Second, Grimsley's army, shades and Pokemon alike, darted forwards, separating the two entities with walls of pin needles, jets of water, and furious wingbeats, while the Master of Darkness himself leaped into battle, a dark aura crackling around his body.

The Cacturne was first, crossing its arms across its chests and suddenly bringing them down. A barrage of seeds thudded into the poisoned ground, and instantly a thick layer of roots sprung up, connecting the dark cactus to the rest of the diseased forest, and giving it power. Three extra pairs of arms sprouted from the plant, and its eyes turned green.

"You have ruined our forest...now, we will ruin you!" Pan started; while the Cacturne's lips hadn't moved, he was sure that the whispering of leaves had come from it.

The now-infused plant raised all eight arms, and hundreds of nedles thudded from the tips of its arms, creating a two-dozen foot high wall between the Darkness and the ghostly dragon.

Pan nodded appreciatively; for whatever reason, the genetics of Pokemon made them weak to certain kinds of attacks. For example, Shadow didn't like bugs in any way, for their hive minds were resistant in every way to his dark attacks; the same thing went for psychics -the minds of bugs were simply resistant to the attacks of beings of darkness and psychics.

Similarly, fighting creatures had enough will that they could easily bear a dark assault; however, their powerful attacks shredded apart beings of darkness. The Darkness was clearly made of...well, darkness; as a result, it was essentially immune to all attacks that were psychic, ghostly, or dark in nature; however, it was weak to Marshal's powerful fighting attacks.

The ghostly dragon, on the other hand, would have been immune to any fighting attacks, being basically insubstantial, but would be harmed quite a bit by psychic, ghostly, or darkness-based attacks. Thus, by separating the two beings, the Elites had not only made it impossible for them to combine their forces, but also given themselves a tactical advantage.

However, Pan had to wonder how safe it was to leave the handling of the Darkness solely up to Marshal's forces, which were relatively few compared to the army that Grimsley, Shauntal, and Caitlin controlled. Personally, he would have commanded the small army to split up; obviously the fighters would attack the Darkness, but he would have also had the Pokemon who were resistant to darkness-based attacks attack with, for example, the Cacturne's pin needles; it was resistant to darkness-based attacks, and surely its fauna-based attacks would have been helpful in the fight.

Grimsley didn't seem to have the same idea as him; the Absol and strange purple-yellow-cat launched pulses of darkness at the ghostly dragon, which seemed to do very little but anger it. Meanwhile, the huge crustacean swamped the area around it with water, freezing the draconic specter's lower body while the two birds clawed at it and beat it with their wings.

The dragon seemed completely unfazed by this, taking each and every attack and coming off no worse for its indifference. Pan ground his teeth; couldn't Grimsley see that his attacks were doing little to the leviathan? He tried to speak up, but the bubble appeared to block his voice in addition to trapping him and making him invisible.

The crow, irritated by the beast's attitude -the ghost was now yawning and looking around, bored- flew in, spiraling around so that its beak was ready to drill into the dragon's wings, intending to cripple it.

There was a burst of movement -and then the suited crow was struck through by an enormous, spiky tentacle, which had seemingly come from nowhere, and the tentacle receded into a hole, taking the crow with it.

"No!" Grimsley looked around wildly, and veins popped in his neck as he raised a half dozen shades, all intent on finishing off the dragon. "My legion -destroy it!"

While Grimsley and Marshal had been wildly attacking, Caitlin and Shauntal had been preparing; both had been muttering incantations, energy crackling around them, while their Pokemon defended them from the various bolts of dark and ghostl energy the duo had been hurling at them.

Now, these incantations came into effect. The holy and ghostly mists had been permeating the corrupted soil of the grove, soaking into it and making it damp with holy and ghostly water. Now, the ground itself shook, and the corrupted soil became hallowed ground.

The plan of the two Elites was truly genius, as while their strategy usually worked relatively well, with the ground moving against their enemies and swallowing them up, it wouldn't work against the duo, both of whom flew. Instead, they had concocted a new battle plan, improvised entirely and without communication.

The soil had been corrupted with nightmares, and even when it was hallowed, the earth would still retain a vestige of the Darkness's incredible ability to create beings of imagination. Caitlin and Shauntal intended to use this to their advantage; the ghostly girl would raise the nightmares from the purified dirt, giving them corporeal shape with the rocks of the grove, while the psychic would bend the wills of the newly-created golems to fight for their side.

Now, the hallowed ground took on the shape of nightmares: dozens of skeletons, hordes of zombies, nests of spiders and snakes -all made of indestructible rock. Now, as Caitlin broke their minds, turning them into will-less slaves, they attacked, moving surprisingly fast for their enormous size, joining the now-enraged horde of Pokemon and other creatures.

The Pokemon, golems and tulpa, shades, fog- and mist- creatures alike; all fought with incredible skill, working as a cohesive unit. Never were either of the duo allowed to counterattack; if either tried, one of the Elite's creatures, or an Elite themselves, would jump in, slamming the enemy and allowing the army to continue fighting. They were prepared; they really couldn't be held accountable for what happened next.

The duo counter-attacked; the Darkness simply brought its arms down, and a pulse of crackling dark energy flew from it, a horrid wave. As it passed through the bodies of the attacking force, different things happened. The shades faded into the ground, the golems and tulpas crumbled into piles of dirt, the fog- and mist- creatures dissolved, and the Pokemon assumed a momentarily stricken look before falling to the ground, asleep.

"What the-" Grimsley spluttered, now starkly aware that the creature had instantly neutralized roughly five-hundred incredibly powerful creatures without a second thought. He had come, drinking courage potion on the way, from the poker table, having just done a card trick to distract his fellow gamblers while he snuck a card down from his sleeve. Yes, perhaps he hadn't taken it as seriously as he should have -but how could Grimsley have suspected such a devastating attack?

The rest of the Elites were similarly bewildered; they had come expecting two incredibly powerful Pokemon -but this? Usually, just one of them, with their partner Pokemon, had been enough to quell any threat. Albeit they had never faced a legendary Pokemon before, but the Elites had only ever had to band together once before, when facing down a Laval, one of the Old Ones, a titan of the lava who had been slumbering for eons deep below the earth's surface.

On that occasion, they hadn't even had to use all of their power; thirty of their Pokemon had been enough to neutralize the destructive creature, and send it back to the magma lair from where it had awoken! Yet when they had been briefed of this situation, of an incredible spike in energy over a nameless forest that bordered Nuvema and Accumula, by Alder, they had been told to bring in all the stops.

Such power would easily have been enough to take over Unova, and Alder knew it; the effort of unleashing such a force would deeply weaken the region's security, yet the Champion had went ahead and ordered them to do it.

At the time, they had laughed off his concerns, finally obeying with bemused glances amongst each other in the sound-proofed briefing room. Yet now, it seemed, Alder had not been overestimating the beings of legend, but underestimating them.

"We don't have any chance," Caitlin muttered, absolutely terrified. "We should just surrender..." She was not usually one to back down, the rest knew, and with a sinking feeling, the rest of the Elites realized the inevitable -they could not win.

The psychic had said the words rather quietly, but the Darkness heard; now oozing black ichor from every surface, it threw its head back and cackled.

"Surrender?!" The insane Pokemon shook its head in contempt. "Oh, no...after all, you've caused quiiite the bit of trouble -haven't they, old pal?"

The ghostly dragon spread out its wings. "Good-bye," it rumbled. "I would rather not have done this, but after all, you have hurt me..." It was true; the draconic specter was physically fine, but as Pan watched, it staggered, falling onto one side. The duo was clearly almost done for -and so, Marshal attacked.

"Attaaack!" The fighter charged towards the Darkness, arms by his sides and fists already clenched. Pan realized two things then; the first was that, for a man of his size, Marshal was surprisingly light on his feet. The second was that while the Darkness had said 'we' the ghostly dragon had said 'me', implying a hierarchy within the duo.

The Darkness smirked, preparing a surge of darkness -yet it was at that moment that Shauntal awoke another nightmare, this one an enormous, baleful rock-turle that rose up beneath the dark being, snapping at it. The entity's concentration was broken, and Marshal, jumping up, delivered a powerful flat-palm blow to its head, sending it straight into the ground.

Pan then fell onto the ground, rolling away from the scene of the action. For a moment, he was confused -but then he remembered. The bubble around him had apparently been created by the Darkness, and he had been leaning against it, watching the proceedings. Now that the being's concentration was broken, the bubble had broken as well; he was free.

For a second, Pan considered helping the Elites; perhaps he'd be immune to the attacks of the duo, just as he had been unaffected by the fear, and allow the four to destroy the two strange beings? He hesitated; while he was not a coward, Pan sensed that there was something more to these two Pokemon, and it was in fact this moment of hesitation that saved his life.

In the next instant, the ghostly dragon shrugged, and another ragged, spiky tentacle emerged from the sky, shooting towards Marshal.

"Watch out!" Grimsley bellowed, seeing the talon-tipped tentacle set on a course that would invariably kill his comrade. Acting on impulse, the master of darkness shot out a bolt of shadowy lightning, which hit the tentacle and burst it into particles of ghostly energy.

Marshal, looking just a nanosecond after Grimsley shouted his warning, and seeing the tentacle vaporized, nodded shortly, now wary. The fighter frowned; the draconic specter wasn't sending another tentacle after him, which suggested that it couldn't.

In reality, the ghost-dragon was simply impressed by Grimsley's speed in reacting; unlike the Darkness, it had no real interest in the human world, as very little in the physical world could harm or benefit it in any way. It had been quite some time since a living being had destroyed one of its tentacle, and the legend had no intention of destroying such an interesting human -at least, not yet.

However, Marshal, convinced that he had found a weakness, now leaped onto the Darkness, assured that no tentacle would come out of the sky and impale him as it had done to Grimsley's crow.

Unfortunately for him, the enormous dragon had no such qualms about killing the fighter, and another spike came forth from the sky. This time, however, Pan had been scrutinizing the sky, waiting for such a tentacle to emerge, and this time, he saw it. To the untrained eye, it would have been barely visible, an observer's eyes simply skating over it, but Pan knew what he was looking for -and thus, he saw it.

It was a rip in the sky, and though it was just barely visible, the sky around the spot of the spike's emergence was just a shade darker than the rest.

This time, it was Marshal who saw the tentacle, and though he was taken aback, he jumped out of the way, causing the tentacle to crash into the dirt-turtle, which was then hauled back up into the sky.

Pan, watching, noticed that as the spike receded, the area in the sky from whence it had come lightened, and the ghostly dragon seemed to exude an aura of anger. He noted this; perhaps the tentacles couldn't be commanded, and thus could be easily dodged? Pan then shook his head, dispelling the prospect; if he ever went up against the duo again, he wouldn't draw the confrontation out for any longer than necessary.

The Darkness got to its feet, and the bubble re-formed; however, now that Pan wasn't in it, it hardly mattered. Without wasting any time on insults or taunts, the legend let loose another wave of energy, the previous having used up all of its energy on the Pokemon and other creatures and not having had time to reach the Elites themselves.

Caitlin's eyes widened; she knew what was coming, and quickly hurled a few bolts of psychic energy at it herself, as did Shauntal and Grimsley. Not that it mattered; the attacks simply passed through the ripple, hitting the ground and creating small fizzles where they struck it.

Marshal took a more active approach to getting away from the wave, and attempted to run away from it. Unfortunately for him, he was far too close to the Darkness itself for such an effort to make any difference; the nightmarish line quickly overtook him, putting the dark-skinned fighter to sleep where he lay. The Elites were met with similar fates, hitting the ground with soft thumps.

"Now..." The Darkness patted its claws together in what would have been a hands-dusting-off for a human, and Pan involuntarily giggled, struck by the ridiculous resemblance. An instant later, he regretted it; perhaps he could have slipped away, into the forest, and alerted the town of the presence of these two incredibly powerful beings.

But not now. Now, the Darkness and the ghostly dragon turned towards him, and the fear that Pan felt from the sight of the two beings, and the knowledge that they were going to kill him, rendered him paralyzed, leaving his mind open to outside contact.

Pan let out one final, tortured scream before his identity was ripped out of his mind and thrown away, like a too-small mask. Hilbert's body lay swaying there, exhausted from the toll of having minds put in and taken out of it.

"What the..." The Darkness began to move towards the body of Hilbert, but was jerked back by one of the enormous, ring-ensconced black-grey legs of the ghostly dragon.

"Stop!" The lord of dimensions hissed, backing away ever-so-slightly. "We must leave at once; I feel a crushing force coming closer!"

The specter stamped its legs on the ground, and the center of the grove, blackened from the destruction of the orb, began to glow. An instant later, the glow faded, leaving behind the same orb that Pan had picked up just a few minutes before. Now, however, it was changed; the surface was a constant blackish-grey, not shifting or showing nightmares.

Ironically, it was this that led to the duo's undoing.

As the two were backing away, heading towards the orb, Hilbert's head snapped back, and the ghostly dragon whipped around, as if struck. It said nothing; however, a tentacle shot down from an opening in the sky, headed straight for the body of Hilbert.

The Darkness turned a second later, firing off its sleeping-wave, and, as an afterthought, several pulses and bolts of dark energy.

Hilbert's mouth opened, and a horrifying laugh exuded from it, the laugh of a million mouths. In the next instant, the tentacle came down where the body had been an instant before, the Possessor having dodged. It also jumped over the waved, and weaved between the attacks of the Darkness.

"Now, now, children..." Hilbert's head snapped back forwards, and a smile split the boy's face, a gruesome smile. "Play nice." Its voice was that of a million, young and old, male and female.

The draconic specter narrowed its eyes, but did not attack further.

"We mean you no harm..." It began warily. It had been centuries since a creature had destroyed one of its tentacles, but it had been millenia since anything had ever dodged one -and the immensely powerful being was beginning to feel as though the two dodgers were one and the same.

"Oh yes we do!" The Darkness snarled, careening into battle and firing off a volley of pulses, all of which the Not-Hilbert dodged with ease. The specter-dragon, shaking its head sadly, flapped its wings, preparing to leave.

"Oh now that's not very nice, is it?" Not-Hilbert shook its head, jumping out of the way of each attack in a blur of motion.

The draconic ghost noted, with some unease, that it had also caught two of the shadow-fires, which it now solidified into pointed, dagger-like objects -a feat which defied all explanation and was most likely just an attempt in showing off.

The Darkness hesitated momentarily, but, letting out a mad yell, shot forward. As it did so, one of its clawed hands morphed and elongated, into a shadowy scimitar that was -quite literally- an extension of its arm.

Not-Hilbert smiled thinly, bracing itself for the attack, knives held loosely by its sides.

The dark entity sped up, bringing the scimitar down in a murderous blow that was sure to cleave the other creature neck to hip. Instead, Not-Hilbert blocked with both knives, crossing the blades and locking their hastily-formed hilts. As the scimitar came down, the Possessor caught it in-between the V of the blades, neutralizing the blow.

Not-Hilbert grinned savagely, using all of Hilbert's muscles and heaving the scimitar back with a spray of sparks. The Darkness, unaccustomed to meeting resistance, was forced back, the weight of its essence-blade pulling it backwards.

Before the other creature could attack once more, the Possessor, grasping both knives by the hilt, threw them underhand, one after the other, deep into the other creature's chest. The Darkness blinked once, and began to laugh.

In the next instant, its entire body ignited in shadowy flame, and the laughter turned to agonizing screaming, as the air filled with the sound of essence burning as the Darkness was driven to its feet.

Not-Hilbert turned, and, seeing the ghostly dragon riveted with fear, leaped towards the specter, covering twenty or thirty meters in one bound. It landed with a thud, in a kneeling position, one hand on the ground and the other on its upright knee. The dragon, beating its wings, flew awkwardly away from the strange mind which had possessed the body of a human and destroyed its comrade.

Not-Hilbert let it go, instead grabbing the orb. It whipped around, as the orb glowed, reeling in the Darkness with strings of essence.

For a minute, the grove shone with black light -and then, suddenly, it was dark.

The ghostly dragon had escaped, leaving behind its orb, which now contained the Darkness. The mind which had possessed Hilbert smiled briefly, before escaping, and Pan hit the ground with a thud.

It would be a few minutes before Lucy, having discovered Shadow, Connor and Jacob knocked out, returned with the latter two, and some two hours before the party of four exited the forest. Pan would not remember what had happened in the grove for quite some time, nor would the Elites, who were sent back to where they had came, befuddled, by the same force that had possessed Hilbert's body and easily defeated the Darkness.

However, before it went, the Not-Hilbert had stowed the orb containing the Darkness, deep within Pan's bag, and cackled -for at the end of the day, it pulled all the strings.


	10. Chapter Ten: A Breakout

**-a/n-**

**Nurses aren't always assassins, and I have no idea how drugs work.**

**-TDK**

"Is he going to be all right?" Lucy asked, scurrying from end to end of the headboard of the hospital bed.

Some three hours ago, she had left the forest with the host of freed Pokemon. Their owners, upon hearing that Pan had gone further in, had been more than eager to help, and had hurried in, finding hundreds of insect carcasses strewn about a grove, with Pan lying at the center. They had scouted around the area, and had also found Connor the Charmander, Shadow the Zorua -at his appearance, many questions had been asked- and Jacob the Durant, lying in a heap on the ground about fifty metres away from the grove.

A host of flying Pokemon had constructed an airlift, and the four had been taken back to the Pokemon Center, and into the hospital ward that lay deeper into the pink building's layout. Jacob had recovered first, barely two minutes after being put into a bed, with Connor and Shadow awakening just half an hour later. The nurse, having diagnosed them, proclaimed that they were healthy apart from a buildup of red dust in their lungs, which she had quickly flushed out with some sort of blue paste.

However, it had been two hours of silence since then, and Pan still hadn't woken up, nor shown any signs of mental activity. In fact, apart from the fact that the heart monitors still showed that blood was flowing through his veins, the doctors would have proclaimed him dead.

Jacob shrugged where his six legs connected to his pain body, clicking his pincers as he did. "I hope so."

Connor, crouched on the side of Pan's bed, nervously raked his claws up and down the poles of the metal bed, creating a shrieking cacaphony.

"Stop it," Shadow muttered, and the fiery lizard murmured a quiet apology, fidgeting.

From his vantage point on the footboard -Shadow was still mortally afraid of bugs, and Lucy and Jacob, friendly though they were, were still bugs- Shadow licked his paw, his mind whirring.

The small Zorua hadn't been briefed on who exactly had been chosen to be the Challenger in the bet, but knew that the person would be a Champion of some sort. That didn't narrow it down much; 'Champion' was usually an honorary title, given to a Trainer who managed to defeat the League and the Champion. However, when he had been told that the Challenger was an actual, bona fide, manages-the-day-to-day-workings-of-the-region Champion...well, that was something else entirely.

Real Champions -those who were in charge of the League itself, and enforced the law in the region- were extremely competent, far above the usual Trainer-Champions. When Shadow had been told by Flora, on a wild night gazing up at the stars and drinking honeysuckle wine, that the Challenger had been the Manager-Champion of another region before he or she had become the Manager-Champion of another region, it had added to the mystery.

In fact, according to his intelligence, such a person didn't even exist -yet a cursory scan of Pan's mind on their initial contact had told all Shadow needed to know about the boy; everything Flora had told him was true, and more besides. The boy apparently had a strong sense of justice, sympathy towards Shadow's kind -that was to say, Pokemon- and a sense of being equal with Pokemon, not to mention extreme battling competence. Pan was extremely attached to his Pokemon -and that made everything Shadow had just realized all the stranger.

For some odd reason, the boy hadn't even made one remark about losing his Pokemon, or his home; Pan hadn't even asked about what was to become of Hoenn after he left it! Surely the entire region would be in chaos; the League may even have fallen -but had Pan asked? No. Such behavior went against all the information the small fox-like creature had on the Challenger, yet it was true nonetheless.

And furthermore, Jacob and Lucy's talking had just reminded him of something; Shadow's spell of communication worked only on Pokemon which Pan had caught with a Pokeball. Connor, of course, was an exception; the small Charmander, tears now brimming in his eyes, had been given to Shadow by Flora. And yet the boy had talked effortlessly and fluently to the two Pokemon.

In fact, Shadow realized with a jolt, Pan had broken down the language barriers between all of them! He hadn't realized it with Connor, but he could now understand the Durant, Joltik, and Charmander with ease, though the Zorua himself was unable to decipher what exactly they were speaking in. It definitely wasn't Common, the tongue which most humans spoke with between races, or Monish, the language which was a standard between all of his kind, used for inter-species trading.

After all, the four of them had talked for quite a while with the nurse in the room, and the human female hadn't even noticed, nor given away any sign that they had even been talking.

With an even larger jolt, Shadow realized something horrific; out of all his comrades, he was the only mon -as Pokemon called each other, having not been imprisoned yet- out of all of them who was actually...well, a mon. Connor had apparently been seduced into accepting the offer by some unsavory beings, Jacob had been killed, as had Lucy; none of them were human.

The Zorua shook his head; indeed, matters were strange all around -and it was definitely up to him to get down to the bottom of things.

A few tense moments later, the tar-gray door's steel knob twisted, and a dour-looking nurse poked her head through, and Shadow groaned inwardly.

The lady was, while very good at her job, extremely annoying, constantly 'checking in' on Pan and glaring at them as though they were responsible for the comatose boy's state. In her last visit, she'd made pointed remarks that implied Pan would be better off with a store-bought team.

Shadow shuddered at the very thought; when a Trainer found a Pokemon, they tried to catch it, and the Pokemon tried to escape; it was all very well and good, and sporting. However, recently, larger corporations had been trawling the bottoms of lakes and rivers in order to capture massive quantities of Pokemon, as well as putting enormous nets over sections of Routes, for the same purpose. They then injected the captured Pokemon with obscene quantities of growth hormones and vitamins, eventually selling them to Trainers. The entire process was terrible, and half the caught Pokemon were outright culled because they weren't up to standard.

Jacob was not so subtle in his disapproval, instead glaring at the nurse and banging his antennae together. In the Durant culture, it was an outright mark of hostility, and often the precursor of a challenge to the death. Jacob, of course, having been brought into his body by the same force that had brought Pan in to Hilbert's body, had no idea of this, merely the knowledge that it was not a compliment.

The redheaded nurse, dressed in a standard nurse uniform -a pink dress with poofy sleeves, long skirt, and white apron- eased the rest of her body through the door and into the room, making every effort to make as little noise as possible.

Shadow glared at her; the woman acted as though Pan was a sleeping baby, not a Trainer in a coma! The fur on his neck stood up, and he bared his stubby fangs at the nurse, who didn't notice.

In the nurse's hands was a tray, with one syringe on its steel-gray surface, filled with an oily black substance. As Shadow watched, a frown on his face, the nurse, all semblance of happiness now gone from her face, walked over to Pan, and took the syringe from the tray, letting the tray itself fall to the floor with a clatter.

It was this clatter that knocked them out of their daze; Lucy lunged towards the syringe, vaporizing the bottom of it and causing the substance to leak out onto the nurse's hands. A second later, Shadow pounced, knocking the woman's tar-covered hands onto Pan's forehead, where it was absorbed. Jacob darted forwards, steel legs click-clacking on the tiled floor of the ward, and grabbed the nurse around the waist with his pincers, throwing her off to one side where she lay, slumped.

Connor, for his part, had looked up wildly and flinched upwards, claws carving a deep cut into the would-be-assassin's belly. Yet the nurse made no noise, not screaming or shouting at the barrage of events which had left her mortally wounded.

A split second later, however, she did scream, as the tar flowed under her fingernails. Shadow whipped his head around, instinctively throwing himself back as the nurse screamed and screamed again, expelling a blackish-green substance from her mouth as the oil worked its way through her system. Then Jacob's carapaced eyes widened, and he looked down at Pan's face, where the tar was being absorbed into Hilbert's pale skin.

Shadow growled savagely, turning his attention away from the now-still nurse. He had seen the viscous liquid working its way through her system, and had seen her veins slowly fade to black and then wither away. No doubt she had been possessed; her screams had sounded otherworldy, as if another person, far away, had been screaming in pain as well. Nothing could be done for her, so he focused his attention on Pan, the Champion, the Chosen One.

"Lucy," Shadow growled, "can you try and...do whatever to you do to that stuff in his body?"

The Joltik, legs quivering and giving off sparks, shook her head. "My sister always told me," Lucy whispered, "That when particles collide, they damage the little things around them."

"In other words," Jacob put in, pincers clacking together, "If she tried, she might kill Pan."

"Try it, for Arceus' sake!" Shadow roared, at his wits' end. He had traveled all over Unova, seen and done things no other member of his species had done before -save one, whose name was no longer mentioned- and squirmed his way out of many an impossible scenario -but this was different. Now, the small Zorua felt powerless, out of his depth. What good were his powers, he thought viciously, if he couldn't use them for anything real?! "It's all we have," Shadow finished weakly, legs giving out underneath him.

"It might not be deadly," Connor ventured. "I mean, it did get that weird stuff out of her" here the Charmander jerked his ever-burning tail towards the corpse of the nurse "didn't it?"

"It also killed her," Jacob replied, eyes on Pan. "Now, all we can do is hope-"

Perhaps he would have said 'for the best', perhaps 'and wait'; none of them ever got a chance to find out, for then, Pan's eyes jerked open, and he sat up with a jolt.

"Yello?" Pan pursed his lips, looking down at his legs, which were covered in a white sheet. "Why am I in a bed?" He asked, glancing around. "Why does everyone look so sad?" Then his eyes fell upon the dead nurse, and he jerked away, scrambling against the headboard in an effort to put as much distance between him and the corpse as possible. "Good Mew, what happened?!"

Connor was the first to recover, pouncing onto Pan and nearly shredding the blue-and-white-striped pillow with his claws. "Pan!" He shouted happily. "You're alive!"

Pan raised an eyebrow drily. "Well, yes, that is what the circumstances would imply." He looked at Shadow and Jacob, frowning. "Where am I?" He asked, puzzled. "Where's Nask -and where's that evil thingummy?"

Connor frowned, and was about to answer when Jacob butted in.

"You mean you don't remember?" The Durant shook its head from side to side, clicking its metal pincers as it did so.

"Not a thing." A distressed expression came over his face. "Was I -you know, hurt? Am I going to die?"

Shadow shook his head, leaping from his post onto Pan's shoulder and making himself comfortable. "Nothing so dramatic," said the Zorua airily, waving a paw. "You were in some sort of coma, presumably induced from the same incident which caused you to lose your memory."

"You gonna tell 'im about the assassin?" Jacob asked, tossing his head in the direction of the corpse.

Pan frowned. "Assassin?" He started, panicking, but Shadow dug his claws into the hospital gown, baring his fangs.

"Yes," The small Zorua growled, Shadow's appearance becoming more threatening than he actually was. "That nurse came in here with a syringe, planning to kill you."

"She didn't count on us." Connor laughed, making a fist with one hand and punching it into the other in an effort to make himself be intimidating.

Pan raised an eyebrow, smiling wryly. "Was that supposed to be threatening?"

"Well, yes," Connor admitted. "...Wasn't it?"

Silence filled the room for a second, before Lucy piped up.

"I was scared," she squeaked, looking up at Pan with huge blue eyes.

The Champion immediately softened, smiling and letting the small Joltik onto his other shoulder. Shadow, panicking, attempted to crawl as far away from Lucy as possible, then realized that they were both stuck less than a foot away from each other. His desire to be comfortable and his fear of bugs warred, until the former won out, and Shadow shrugged. He'd have to get used to Lucy, he supposed; they were, after all, stuck with each other.

His reverie was broken by Connor, who replied, looking hopeful.

"Really?"

"Arceus, no," Lucy said, shuddering. "That was terrible."

Jacob laughed, and then frowned; his expression didn't change much, Pan noted lazily.

"Arceus?" The Durant asked. "Who's that?"

Pan and Connor shrugged, but Lucy looked thoughtful.

"Do you know," she began, one leg idly scratching the fur underneath her mouth, "I feel the name in my mind, but...I just can't place it."

They might have gone on like this all day, had Shadow not intervened.

"Enough," he growled. "If whoever erased Pan's memory sent one assassin after him, they won't hesitate to do so again; we need to get out of here."

Pan nodded quickly, and stood up, legs shaky from inactivity. Lucy squealed, almost falling off, and Jacob and Connor backed away, the latter pinching Pan's backpack between his pincers and throwing it to the Champion, who caught and put it on.

"Right," he said decisively. "We're going out of the window and off the roof; there's no telling what they've put in front of the door!"

Connor frowned, walking over to the door, claws clicking on the tiled floor, and tried the knob. The door swung open, revealing nothing but a regular hallway, full of bustling sound.

"What's wrong with the door?" The Charmander asked, reluctantly walking back over to Pan, who was shaking his legs to get some feeling into them.

Pan raised an eyebrow. "Doors are for people with no imagination," he replied.

"No," Connor replied, "doors are for regular people. Why don't we just use the door?" He couldn't see why Pan was so eager to go out of the window, really. Though he liked flying as much as any other Charmander did -quite a bit- Connor despised heights from when he was a human.

Shadow rolled his eyes, and sighed. "Connor, Pan was being sarcastic when he said 'what they've put in front of the door'." Seeing the Charmander's frown, Shadow sighed again, continuing. "Whoever sent the assassin could easily have stationed agents in the lobby; it's what I would do."

"So do you send assassins after Trainers often?" Jacob asked, inspecting the window.

It was a regular large window, twenty or so square feet in area, with lengths of wood criss-crossing in front of it for decoration. Breaking it would be no problem, but there would almost certainly be an alarm attached to the window, and the Durant didn't like their chances of outrunning the hospital guard. As they'd trailed behind the emergency medics when carrying Pan into the hospital, he'd noticed a dozen or so guards with bows and daggers patrolling the outskirts of the hospital.

Shadow made no comment, instead scrutinizing the wall around the window. He spotted a badly concealed alarm halfway up the left side, made to look like a painting. It was, in fact, an extremely good disguise for it; nobody would have checked under a painting of soup cans for an alarm. Even if they had, they would have seen only a small knob, which could easily have been just for hanging the painting. However, the same natural gifts that gave the small Zorua's people the ability to cast illusions had also given them the ability to see through illusions; after all, it wouldn't be much of a civilization of theirs if thieves could wander wherever they pleased.

"Alarm," he reported, pointing a paw to it. As the others looked at it, he wrinkled his nose, formulating a plan. "Lucy, do you think you could disable the alarm?"

"Hmmm..." Lucy hopped off of Pan's shoulder, scampering up the side of the window and onto the painting. "Could you help me?" She asked, struggling to move the painting aside.

Jacob made to knock the painting off with one of his antennae, but Pan made a shooing motion with one hand, taking the painting off with the other. After all, it wouldn't do to have the alarm activated before they even got out of the room.

Her barrier gone, Lucy leaped onto the knob, placing all of her legs on the alarm and closing her eyes. As a Joltik, she had a natural affinity for electronic devices, and she could sense the circuitry in the device. Working with the utmost concentration, Lucy used a small spark of electricity to travel the inner machinations of the alarm, trying to cut its power.

As he watched her do this, Shadow frowned. Unova -and indeed, the rest of the world- had complex devices such as alarms and medical equipment, yet the scientists of the regions never seemed to use their skills for warfare. The elders of his species, the Zoroarks, were especially attuned to the layers of history in the world, and his own grandfather, Depth, had come out of a vision, just over a week ago, with a startling pronounciation.

He had claimed that there was a time, millenia before theirs, that humanity had been the sole race to tread the earth. Depth had said that the humans -the Trainers, he assumed- had long since killed off all the Pokemon of their time. Deprived of any sort of violent activity, the humani -as moni, the Pokemon's name for Pokemon as a whole- had proceeded to murder each other. Here, Depth's vision had become even more disturbing; in the strange past-world, the humani had had strange, cylindrical devices, capable of killing dozens at the slightest squeeze, enormous buildings which could move and create enormous explosions; all these, and many more.

What was more, the humani existed in much greater quantities in the strange past-world, in thousands upon thousands upon thousands upon thousands, in numbers which Shadow could not even begin to comprehend. All this, and much, much more, hinted at a point in the past where humani had been much more advanced and civilized than the present. This in and of itself was not too worrying; Shadow's parents and aunts and uncles had argued that the present state of the humani was for the best, and all had agreed.

But Depth had said that in the past-world, armed humani had stormed small clusters of buildings made out of straw and mud, in a land where the sun beat down relentlessly and the people were of a much darker skin, and massacred the humani there. Again, this was not shocking -but what Depth had spoken next had hushed everyone.

The massacred humani had fought back -with weapons almost exactly like the so-called 'advanced' tools of killing in the present. And when one of the armed humani had been injured, his comrades -after killing the rest of the brown-skinned humani- had taken him to a strange creation with lengths of metal protruding out of its top. There, they had cured him -with medical equipment almost exactly like that of the present-day world.

The gathering had been stunned; the advanced civilization in the past was not exactly anything to wonder about. After all, some sort of mass extinction event could easily have occured, wiping out the destructive humani so that the present world could rise, a much better world. However, for humani in both times to have used the same weapons and medical technology...?

From then onwards, the rest of the Illusions had done little but survive, shell-shocked at this revolutionary news. It was this that had prompted Shadow to accept an offer which had been asked of him months ago; to be the guide of a humani who would apparently complete the League Challenge, becoming famous worldwide. There had been a substantial salary involved, but Shadow had dismissed it; he wanted to be the guide only to be able to travel the world, and hopefully decipher the mystery behind his grandfather's vision.

Speaking of which, Depth had disappeared just a day before Shadow had left, leaving the forest with a man. The Illusion's scouts, unable to get a good glimpse of the man before he had hurried into a bush to wait for Depth, had noted only that the man was apparently dressed like a knight.

At this memory, Shadow's eyes widened; could it be...? But it was then that Lucy interrupted his reverie, squeaking excitedly.

"I've done it!" The electrical mite exclaimed. "The alarm is off; we can get out!"

Pan nodded sharply, and Jacob moved forward to break the window with one of the steel balls dangling off his antennae, stopped by a hand from Pan, who was frowning.

"What do you think you're doing?" Pan asked.

Jacob tilted his head to one side, confused. "Breaking...out?"

Pan rolled his eyes, using his thumbs to turn the latch at the center of the window from horizontal to vertical, sliding the window open and letting a gust of air into the room.

As the breath of fresh air touched over the corpse, the nurse's eyes flickered open, a gruesome smile splitting its face. It no longer had the ability to kill the Champion, the dark being knew, but it could certainly raise the alarm. It rose unsteadily to its feet and lumbered out of the door, unnoticed by the other five, who had all clambered out of the window, plopping down onto the concrete around the hospital.

"Why would you think that the window had to be broken?" Connor persisted. "I mean, you were a human once, right? Unless we were in some sort of prison, why on earth would we need to break a window to get out of the room?"

Jacob snapped his pincers at the Charmander, who jumped back before continuing to walk down the hospital's entrance roundabout. The building itself bordered the outskirts of Accumula Town, serving as an easy way for Trainers and their Pokemon injured on Route Two to be healed, which was lucky for the five, as Pan was still a little bit weak.

The hospital itself was a large, sprawling three-story affair, with two wings spreading out behind it. The roundabout itself was enormous, and required a bit of a walk to get across, serving as an extension of the lobby, where stretchers could be dispatched to bring in patients. In the center of the enormous stretch of blacktop was a fountain of the creator of the hospital, spewing out water from his moustache.

Currently, a large party was crossing the roundabout, doctors and nurses, their mid-afternoon lunch break ended, headed towards the hospital to resume their shifts.

The team, however, noticed none of this, fast-walking across the hundred yards or so to not be noticed. Unfortunately, however, it seemed as though their efforts were in vain, for just as Shadow was thinking that they might have escaped, an alarm began to ring, a harsh clanging that notified all of the guards that there was a possible threat escaping the building.

"I thought you disabled the alarm!" Connor shouted, as they started to run instead of fast-walk; if they were lucky, they'd be lost in the crowd of people crossing the roundabout.

"I did!" Lucy squeaked, panicked. "Maybe...maybe somebody saw us leave?"

"It doesn't matter!" Pan said through gritted teeth, fighting to keep running. His muscles, exhausted from walking through the forest and subsequently defeating the Darkness, had had just enough time in bed rest to stiffen, but not to relax. Inwardly, Pan doubted he could keep up the pace much longer, but that was a bridge he'd cross when he came to it.

"Guards," Shadow said briefly, hooking his claws into the fabric of Pan's jacket and turning in the direction of the oncoming guards.

There were three of them, clad in dark pink uniforms with bands of white circling their shoulders, waists, elbows, wrists, knees, and ankles. Each guard carried a standard-issue crossbow -at least, as far as Shadow could tell; from roughly fifty feet away, he didn't have too good of a glimpse of the guards, after all- as well as a long dagger, or dirk, stuck through their belts. Any more than that, Shadow couldn't tell -but he knew that Pan wouldn't hurt the guards, and he didn't even know if they'd be able to defeat them, so the only option was running.

Jacob, having tilted his head backwards to confirm Shadow's message, had apparently come to the same conclusion, for he stopped for just a second, scooping up first Pan and then Connor and allowing them to ride on his back.

"We don't have time," the Durant said briefly, allowing his riders to adjust themselves to the hard, domed carapace on his back. "I can run much faster than the lot of you; Pan, get out the map -let's go."

And with that, Jacob's six legs whirred into motion, becoming a blur as they hit the ground over and over again, carrying the large, steel-plated insect and its passengers towards their destination. He raced around the crowd and exited the round-about, onto the main dirt road that led towards Route Two. The road was just over six hundred or so yards long, and served as the entertainment and business center for the town, full of restaurants, theatres, and assorted shops.

"Won't you get tired?" Lucy asked concernedly, as Pan, fighting to stay on Jacob's back, shrugged off his bag and began rooting through it. "I mean, we are awfully heavy..."

Jacob snorted briefly. "Durants can carry up to ten times their weight and still walk," he rasped, the moisture in his mouth being flung away by the wind. "All of you combined are maybe one or two times my weight; I think I can manage."

Shadow had said nothing this entire time, but sighed slightly, allowing his claws to sink back into the pads of his feet. "That was a close escape," he murmured. "I wonder why the guards didn't-"

"Ponyta!" Connor near-screamed, having being put on the Durant's back facing backwards. "They've got Ponyta!"

Shadow whipped around and muttered under his breath angrily. While Connor wasn't exactly right, he wasn't far off; the guards had momentarily stopped to bring out their Rapidashes, each saddled and bridled so that their flaming manes, backs, and tails wouldn't catch onto their rider's clothes. While he didn't doubt that Jacob was fast, he severely doubted that the steel-covered ant could outrun a Rapidash.

"Lucy, Connor," he shouted, fighting to be heard over the wind, which had picked up, "When the guards catch up, hit 'em with everything you've got! I'll try and throw down an Illusion, but the Rapidash are running too fast!"

"Oh, shaddup," Jacob clicked. "You think I can't outrun a horse on fire?"

Shadow was about to reply incredulously, but Jacob continued on the same breath.

"I could, but with you lot on my back, it'll be a close thing." The Durant squinted into the distance; they had a few more hundred yards to go before they reached the toll-gate that served as the entrance into Route Two. Once there, they'd be able to hide from their pursuers. Of course, they could have hid in the shops themselves, but Jacob didn't fool himself about their chances; the guards most likely knew the town inside-out, whereas they could easily get lost, or stumble into someone -or something- worse than their pursuers.

"Once we get through the toll-gate," Pan shouted, looking up from his map and squinting into the wind, "we can hide in the clumps of grass until the guards go by, then make our way towards Striaton and continue with the League Challenge!"

"Watch out!" Lucy squeaked. In Jacob's haste, he hadn't noticed that a lone news-cart, its brakes never well oiled, had rolled down an alleyway and into the street, now just a few yards ahead of them.

The Durant's eyes widened, and he frantically tried to run away, but he was going too fast, and they burst into -and through- the cart, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. A newspaper flew into Pan's face, and he grabbed and unfurled it, frowning at the title.

"Pro-Pokemon Radical Group Loses Court Case When Defendant Becomes Paranoid and Accusatory?" Shadow read out from his perch on Pan's shoulder, raising one blood-red eyebrow. "Give me a better view."

Pan obeyed, his eyes scanning the article. Apparently, some sort of radical group, all about 'freeing Pokemon' -whatever that was supposed to mean- had had one of their members arrested for attempting to steal a girl's Pokemon to 'liberate it'.

In court, the hearing had been going relatively well, the defendant's lawyer easily winning the case, until about five or so hours ago, when the defendant had suddenly gone out of his mind, screaming about plots and how he hated all of the scum in the room. That, of course, had not improved the group's chances of getting off scot-free, and the judge had apparently declared the lot of them criminals.

After that, the team had broken up, breaking out of the courtroom and defying capture; the accused boy had disappeared in the confusion, and the theives were dubbed 'Team Plasma' after the blue-white uniforms they wore.

At this, Shadow wrinkled his nose; blue-white uniforms...? That rang a bell, certainly...he never got a chance to follow up on that particular thought, however, because then Jacob stumbled to a halt in front of the check-point.

"We're here," the Durant clicked wearily, crawling to a full stop and letting himself fall to the ground.

Pan, confused, looked back, to see their pursuers halted at the wreckage of the news-cart, which had devolved into a full-scale riot as other carts had crashed into it, creating a total blockade of the street.

"Well that was convenient," he managed.

The checkpoint building was not very large; the size of a one-story building, it had an open front and back for cyclists and runners. Inside the building was a large, wall-length television which reported the news and various Unovan bulletins. There were rows of leather seats in the building, where various Trainers slumped, sat, or slept.

It was rectangular, the front and back thin and the other sides wide, and the left and right walls were covered by large blue desks, around five or so feet off the ground. There were two Trainers at the desks, filling out forms with pens bolted to the desks.

It was behind these desks that three harried-looking clerks rushed to and fro, their hands full of papers and the like. Pan, getting off of Jacob, trudged over to one of these clerks.

"Excuse me," he muttered. The clerks took no notice of him, typing information from a form into the enormous computers that were built into the walls.

Shadow scratched him on the ear. "Say it like you mean it!" The fierce Zorua commanded.

Clearing his throat, Pan tried again. "Excuse me!" He called, trying his best to look important and business-like. It didn't work; the clerks still paid no attention to him, though one did detach herself from the computer to pick up a thermos and sip from it gratefully.

"Oh for Arceus' sake," Shadow muttered exasperatedly. In the next instant, he cast an Illusion around Pan, changing the barriers of sound around the pale-looking Trainer so that his voice would be amplified. "Try again," he suggested.

Pan rolled his eyes, took a deep breath in, and let it all out. "EXCUSE ME!" He shouted, the Illusion amplifying and transmitting the sound to be ten times louder, causing it to reverberate around the room and wake up all of the relaxing Trainers.

The clerk with the thermos of coffee, who was the closest, got the worst of it; the shout actually pushed the thermos out of her hand, and it fell to the floor.

There was a pregnant pause, during which Shadow, disheveled -his abilities did not, unfortunately, extend to not being affected by the sound-related Illusions which he cast- hurriedly took down the Illusion. After a second or so, Pan spoke up.

"I'd like to go to Route Two," he said with a smile; as the speaker, he heard his voice normally.

The female clerk with the coffee fell over, and another hurried towards him, a sheaf of papers in his hand. He thrust the lot at Pan, who caught it, staggering under the force.

"Here," the young man snapped, pushing up his wire-frame glasses with one hand. "Fill these out; your reason for travel"

"Going to Striaton City," Pan interrupted cheerfully.

"your Pokemon and their levels," the clerk continued as though nothing had happened, snatching back the papers, grabbing a pen from a coffeepot, and filling out the forms himself.

"Durant, Joltik, Charmander, er..." Pan blinked, confused; he wasn't exactly sure whether or not he was supposed to reveal Shadow's species name.

"Just say Oshawott," the Zorua replied mentally, hurriedly climbing back down into Pan's shirt.

"...Oshawott. Uh..." Pan also had no idea what level his team was; they hadn't really done any training, but surely their fight against the nightmare-creature -the amount that he could remember- had to count for something?

His team's level effectively referred to their growth; when Pokemon battled, their hormone systems went into overdrive, pushing adrenaline through their veins and also causing them to grow slightly. In the wild, this rarely mattered, as Pokemon barely ever got into battles, thus meaning that they didn't grow abnormally quickly. However, under the command of a Trainer, it was quite different, and the Pokemon tended to grow at a rapid rate, fitting years of growth into weeks or days.

Somewhere along the line of humans 'domesticating' Pokemon, someone had realized that a system needed to be put into place to put a regulation into place concerning the growth of a Trainer's Pokemon -and thus, the leveling system was born. Pan frowned; usually the Pokedex did all of the work for him, but he couldn't even remember getting a Pokedex, to be frank.

"...ten?" He managed.

The clerk looked up from the forms, suspicious. "Well, what is it?"

"Ten," Pan replied with more authority.

"Hometown"

"Pal-" Pan began cheerfully; he had grown up in Pallet Town, all the way back in Kanto...to think, how far he'd come! Shadow, eyes widening, scratched him frantically on the ear, but it was too late; Pan was already saying the latter half of the word destined to change his life. "-let."

"Why did you scratch me?" Pan asked mentally, annoyed.

Shadow said nothing, instead curling into a ball and preparing himself for an Illusion. It would have to encompass all of them, somehow making it seem as though they'd been carried off, while still allowing them to escape...he groaned softly; why?

The clerk, meanwhile, dropped the pen, eyes growing wide, and reached for the phone behind him with scrabbling fingers as a cold pit settled into his stomach. There was an immigration law in Unova; there had been since the founding of its League. Border control was fierce, killing refugees if necessary -to his mind, this meant that the boy standing in front of him was a cold-blooded killer.

In fact...come to think of it, hadn't he read in the papers about Port Castelia being under attack by terrorists? It had been right on the page after that story about the radical group's declaration as criminals! The clerk finally managed to grab the phone off the wall, and said into it one breathless word: "Skatole."

It was the code word for all checkpoint offices to utter into the phone, were they to discover a possible immigrant. The phone was on at all times to ensure that nothing strange was going on in the offices. If a fight occured, or a compromising conversation occured, every bit of it would be recorded, and sent to the Unovan Intelligence Service.

Twenty-five miles away, Mark Anuyit, deputy of the U.I.S., dropped his head, clenching and unclenching his fists in an effort to keep his calm. It had been just over a half hour since they had taken care of the Port Castelia bombing business, and his agents had assured him that all the refugees had been captured.

Yet here, clearly, someone had slipped under the net, for the Accumulan Checkpoint Office had just issued an immigrant alert. Anuyit had no choice but to send in an entire team of Rangers; they would have to order a media blackout and hope for the best. If these people were good enough to get away from his agents once, there was no telling what they could do in the future.

"Send the nearest Rangers to the Accumulan Checkpoint Office," Anuyit barked into a commanding officer's face. "And get me on the line with whoever was in charge of the Port Castelia cleanup; I want his termination letter signed on the dotted line by tomorrow."

"Sir, yes sir!" The officer fast-walked away from the deputy commander; he certainly wouldn't want to be the head of the cleanup operation right now. Anuyit was a tolerable man at the best of times; when nervous, he became downright awful.

But then, now the Rangers would be moving in -and the entire sorry business would be cleaned up in a hurry. Anuyit allowed himself one smile before going back to his paperwork.

Of course, had he taken the time to consider the situation and called the office back, he would have surely retracted the troops. After all, what sort of immigrant would go through every checkpoint from Castelia to Nuvema without being caught, presumably reach Accumula, and then turn back and make the most idiotic mistake possible?

But Anuyit hadn't taken the time, confident that whoever had sounded the alert was sure that they had an immigrant in their midst. And now the order was being sent -the order to exterminate Pan H.G.

Back in the checkpoint office, everything had gone to hell. Shadow had quickly covered himself and Pan in an illusory bubble which connected to Jacob, Lucy, and Connor on the far side of the office, close to the doors -for security's sake, Pokemon weren't allowed inside the building- and created an Illusion of an explosion.

This, of course, had only reinforced the idea that they were highly dangerous terrorists, and a second later a guard had appeared from behind the blue desk. Shadow turned his head as the five of them hurried to move against the wall; the doors had automatically been locked down, so they'd silently decided to wait until everything cleared over and sneak out. He wished he hadn't.

The guard had a mechanical crossbow, a S.E.S.-which stood for Segmented Entry Shot- Sauer, the crossbow favored by the Unovan Guard Detail for its single-shot power. After all, in their line of work, if a target took more than one shot to take down, they were in trouble that no rapid-fire bow could solve.

Shadow gulped upon seeing it; while he had obviously never handled one of the devices, he knew that the crossbow bolt, upon entry, would split up into segments that lodged themselves in the unfortunate target's stomach, incapacitating but not killing them.

"I'm going after them!" The guard yelled. Without waiting, he dashed off, unlocking the door as he went.

Pan nudged Jacob and lifted his chin towards the door; while he had no idea what the fuss was about, he had been in such situations before, and knew that they would need to leave before further reinforcements arrived.

The Durant nodded, and Pan got on, Lucy and Shadow on his shoulders, followed by Connor. His steel-shod legs making scarcely a sound on the blue carpeting of the office, Jacob padded out of the doors -and threw himself to the side as a crossbow bolt embedded itself into the tree directly to the side of where he had just been.

He quickly got his balance again, but the rest were not so lucky; Pan and Connor had had a relatively loose grip, unprepared for an ambush, and they sprawled into the dirt. Pan made to get up, but stiffened when he felt the oh-so-familiar feeling of cold steel against his neck.

"Get up," the guard hissed, hatred etched into his face. He had lost a sister to a panicking refugee with a gun, and had nursed his grudge ever since. He waved the crossbow up slightly. "Hands above your head."

Pan got up slowly, his mind racing. He had no idea what he'd done wrong, but that didn't matter; unless he acted soon, he had no doubt he'd be jailed without a second thought.

"Look, I don't know what you think I've done but-"

Pan had taken self-defense classes in the Saffron City Dojo for two months before getting private instruction from Koga, the greatest assassin Kanto had ever known. Koga had told him a few elementary secrets of fighting; more often than not, it was better to get in one decisive blow rather than attack the enemy over and over again.

The ninja had also told him one thing: the enemy's mind is distracted when somebody is talking to them.

He quickly dropped to the ground; as he had hoped, the guard was momentarily stupefied, and didn't fire his crossbow. Without giving the other man time to react, he lashed upwards with a brutal punch that sent the guard reeling backwards -but didn't knock him out.

"Why you little-" the guard snarled.

Pan barely had time to react before the other man rushed towards him, and clumsily dodged. The guard, carried forward by his own momentum, windmilled his arms to catch his balance. As he did, Pan karate-chopped the other man under his ear, one of the many sensitive points on the body. The guard had time to widen his eyes before he slumped to the ground, unconscious.

Pan backed slowly away, breathing heavily, heart and mind racing. He'd just assaulted a Unovan guard -unless he killed both the man and everyone inside of the checkpoint building, this was it, the end of his journey before it had even started.

Connor, not understanding the consequences of assaulting a police officer or that the guard would be able to deliver a description of Hilbert when he awoke, laughed.

"You sure taught him a lesson!"

Lucy jabbed him on the shoulder from her perch atop his head -she was growing quickly- and hissed "shut up".

"Why?" Connor asked, stupefied. "He knocked him out," he continued on, oblivious to the silence of his companions, gesturing to the fallen guard, "so we can just get a move on!"

There was a pregnant pause for a few seconds, and Shadow spoke, slowly at first but then with more confidence.

"Pan's logic is that the guard will give a description of him when he wakes up, and that his Trainer's license will be removed -correct?" Shadow asked rhetorically, not expecting a response. He was taking in a breath when Pan responded despondently.

"Shadow -it's time they knew." Pan sat down heavily on Jacob's back, looking at Connor and Lucy with heavy eyes. "Look, you guys, I'm not...from around here."

Shadow groaned, realizing that the cat was out of the bag; even if he forced Pan to stop, the damage would be done. Well, it couldn't be too bad, he rationalized. Jacob frowned, twisting his head around to fix Pan with a beady eye.

"What are you talking about?" Jacob asked slowly, narrowing his eyes. He'd known something was up ever since he was reincarnated as a Pokemon, but he hadn't thought much of it. Stranger things had happened, after all.

Pan sighed again, and told them. About how he had been born in Kanto, rising up through its ranks as first a gifted Trainer, then a prodigy, next a mastermind, and finally a Champion before continuing on to conquer Hoenn as well. How he had dove into a strange spot into the ocean and found himself in a strange place, drifting throughout dimensions, and how he had spoken to Shadow.

He told them about waking up in Hilbert's body, in the strange land of Unova, and immediately choosing a new starter Pokemon -which had turned out to be the tricky Zorua himself. How Shadow had shown him his strange powers over the realms of Illusion, and explained to him everything -most importantly the bet, and how Pan would have to become the Champion of Unova, lest it be destroyed.

In fact, Pan told them everything he knew -except the scene which had played out in that grove of horror, which had been tucked away in his mind. When he finished, he looked up with a heavy heart; just ten minutes had passed, and nobody had spoke but him. They would, of course, leave him -after all, what Pokemon would want to be with a Trainer who was both certain to take on the League Challenge and hindered at every step?

"Well, if you're done with yer' little story, we can get a move on," Jacob said at last.

"Yeah, really." Connor yawned, stretching his arms out; they had traveled through the night, and the sun was rising -usually the time that he'd have been asleep as a human.

Lucy was, of course, more understanding. "Pan, we don't care," she said as gently as possible. "We'll stick with you."

Pan's face lit up. "Thanks, you guys." He frowned, looking down at the still-unconscious man, who was starting to stir. "We should get a move on..." Moving swiftly, and taking care not to wake the guard, he dragged the man into the bushes by the roadside, as Connor hopped onto Jacob, Lucy and Shadow on his shoulders.

The latter was silent, as Pan finished his work and got back onto the Durant. Shadow was troubled; looking down on the events that had occurred, he wasn't too sure about what was going to happen. Before Pan had spoken up, and reminded him that the beings which had placed the bet were sure to interfere, he'd been relatively sure that Pan would be able to pass just without saying much or looking up very often.

Now, though...he wasn't confident. Though in all honesty -what could they do? The Zorua frowned, reminded yet again that he had very little idea of the power of the beings which had placed the bet. He was just mulling over the limits of their power, relatively sure that the fact that they hadn't simply destroyed Pan themselves -or in some manner kept him at the checkpoint office- was an indication of their prowess -or lack thereof- when a black-feathered arrow embedded itself in Jacob's carapace.

Shadow squealed, frantically scanning the countryside for signs of the intruders.

"What the-" Connor managed, twisting around, before another arrow sped past his shoulder, drawing a thin line of blood. "Agh!" Connor shuddered, slumping; it was as though someone had purposefully sliced his skin open -not enough for it to bleed, but enough for it to sting tremendously.

"We're under attack!" Pan shouted needlessly, nudging Jacob's head and bringing the Durant around to the direction where the arrows were coming from. "Shadow -get an Illusion up!"

Shadow growled, shaking his head. "You'll have to protect us while I do!" He shouted. "As soon as a physical object pierces the Illusion, it'll be revealed!"

"What do you want us to do?" Jacob brought his head around to face Pan -but was forced to retreat it back into his shell, as an arrow stuck itself into his back, near the area where his neck snuck back into his shell.

"Damn..." Pan muttered, coming to a decision.

It was clear that they were being fired at...but by who? His mind whirled through options, before a series of clues presented themselves to him. The arrow that had been aimed at Connor's shoulder -aimed at his head, until he had twisted. The next shaft, sure to cut Jacob's head from his body -until the Durant had twisted as well. Expert archers, obviously -and near enough that the wind wouldn't have made a difference in their calculations.

He slid off of Jacob; sure enough, another arrow came from the same direction as the rest, reacting to his movement -not he himself. The archers were far enough away that they couldn't clearly make a distinction between Pan and the sky -but the same didn't apply with Connor, Shadow, or Jacob. They were experts, and they were aiming to kill.

"Shadow!" He shouted, throwing an arm around Connor and dragging him under Jacob. "Jacob's shell is too thick for the arrows to pierce through; hide under while you make the Illusion!"

Shadow nodded sharply, scurrying off of Jacob and hiding under the Durant's massive body. Closing his eyes, Shadow allowed himself to drift into the state of peace that allowed him to tap into the natural web of lies and deceit that was at the center of the world, and began preparing his Illusion.

"What should I do?" Lucy squeaked anxiously, her eyes full of worry as she looked up at Pan.

The Trainer bit his lip; with further training, Lucy would be invaluable -but as she was, she was almost useless...

"Nothing for now," Pan managed. "Just...get under Jacob with Shadow. If an arrow comes, try and zap it."

As Lucy scurried under, Pan looked towards the direction where he knew the mysterious archers were hiding. What would happen now?

He got his answer very quickly; a few more arrows whizzed past his head, and he was forced to weave around them, before their mysterious assailants decided they'd had enough, and revealed themselves.

There were three of them, jumping down from trees about fifty yards or more down the road. Two were tall young women, dressed in long green cloaks and clutching longbows, the third a grizzled, short, old man with a curved sword in each hand. It was this man that now spoke, pausing only to take a swig of a leather waterskin.

"By the order of Lady Sa'salin, you are under arrest for the destruction of the Royal Unova and subsequent terrorizing of Castelia City," the old man rattled off, voice loud even from such a distance. When he was done, he settled into a combat stance, low to the ground, swords at the ready. If the refugee didn't move, he'd be shot down -and if he tried to run away, the man would pursue him.

Pan's mouth settled into a hard line. "So be it," he murmured, and sent a signal down his mental line with Shadow. "Are you done yet?"

"Yes," the small Zorua replied verbally, scampering back onto Jacob's back, Connor at his heels. The latter had apparently gotten over his injury, and was now staring angrily at the calm trio.

Pan smiled wickedly. "Then let them see the might of a Champion!" He crouched low over Jacob, and said one word.

"Fast."

From fifty yards away, the younger of the women tensed. "Should we fire?"

The man smirked. "Not necessary; if he's planning to charge, I'll chop the terrorist's head off and deliver it to milady personally." The two women nodded, creeping back into the bushes.

"What the-" the older muttered, seeing movement. "Sir -the refugee appears to be charging, extremely fast!"

"So be it," replied the man coldly, spitting out a chewed-up wad of the adrenalin-drug the police called R-00X. He had no fear; and after all, why should he? The man was a veteran, survivor of hundreds of successful missions -and that was alone. He didn't know the two Archers, but knew that they were relatively good; after all, he himself was one of the top Swordsmen in the region.

And that, as Shadow would have said, was his downfall.

As he saw the Durant charge, he leapt forward in glee -not stopping to think that maybe it was a trick, that maybe he should have waited. Pan and Shadow had discussed their plan mentally in detail.

"Are you sure he'll leap?" the Zorua had asked after informing Pan of the nature of the Illusion he'd created; it was an Elastic, one specially prepared so that he'd be able to modify it at will.

"Positive." Pan knew combat veterans; only the enthusiastic had that note of living in their tone -and the enthusiastic met every challenge head-on.

And so, as the grizzled man leapt forward, blades snicker-snacking, the Illusion disappeared.

"What the-" the man managed, before looking in front of him -because, as though from a nightmare, a Durant and rider had appeared, the former's pincers outstretched.

It was only his combat-honed reflexes that allowed him to twist his body to the side, landing him in a heap at the side of the road.

Pan's eyes widened, and he swore under his breath; now the element of surprise was gone, and he wasn't willing to bet a cent that the archers wouldn't shoot him down with the next step he took. So instead, he pulled back Jacob with a soft touch of his ankles.

"We are not terrorists!" The former champion of Kanto and Hoenn called, and the female Rangers stiffened. "I am just a regular Trainer who made a slip-up! Please, erm...I don't want to hurt any of you, but as you just saw, I could! So, uh...don't follow me! Yeah!"

And with that, Pan rode off, past the three Rangers.

"Smooooth," Shadow commented dryly.

"Shut up," Pan snapped.


	11. Chapter Eleven: A Damsel

"I still think this is a horrible idea," Shadow said. "We've never been in actual combat before -aside from that one time with Cheren- so how do you expect us to win?"

Pan sighed in frustration; he and Shadow had been arguing over the matter for the past ten minutes, and the ferocious Zorua wasn't budging a whit. "Look, we need to battle so I can get an idea of your growth levels!"

"I still don't see why you didn't just get a PokeDex," Connor replied petulantly, sitting slumped against a tree.

"Well, it wasn't really Pan's fault, was it?" Ever the peacekeeper, Lucy had been practicing her particle-collision attack on a branch right above Connor's head. Now, with a particularly ferocious burst, the wood snapped, falling on the small Charmander's head and knocking him out cold.

The three of them observed the situation for a second, before Jacob burst through the bushes to where they'd been hiding.

"She's coming," he growled -and then reared back at the sight of Connor. "The hell?"

"No time to explain," Pan replied tightly, crouching on one knee and pulling apart the brush to get a glimpse at their target.

After escaping the ambush and distancing themselves from the checkpoint office, Shadow had reported that there was a girl approximately fifty feet in front of them, with seemingly quite a large amount of money. Since they were almost out of money, Pan had decided to ambush the girl, challenge her to a battle, and collect the prize money.

Jacob had entered the brush and sped ahead of her, and they'd waited for a while as Connor, Shadow, Jacob and Lucy prepared themselves for battle, practicing their techniques and keeping watch in turns. For his part, Pan had been mentally crunching situations and possible strategies in his head; he'd have to use Connor's limited fire-power, Shadow's illusory power, and Jacob's massive strength as much as possible if he wanted to win.

His eyes took a second to focus, accustomed to the dim light of the brush, before settling on the girl -and Pan was almost sick. It wasn't that she was just physically ugly; there was just something about her that put him off, that made him disgusted in every way possible.

He turned to the side to take in a deep breath, and Shadow, curious, poked his nose out of the bush as well.

"What -all tongue-tied because you see a pretty girl?" Shadow asked mentally.

"Are you kidding me? The girl's a freak show!" Pan retorted incredulously. Of course, Shadow was being sarcastic.

"Right, right -that's what every boy says when they don't have a chance with a pretty girl."

"Since when did you become a girl?"

"Shut up, you two," Jacob replied gruffly.

Shadow started. "W-what?" They'd been talking mentally, after all.

"Oh please." Connor rolled his eyes. "Every so often, you two look at each other, and then one of you smiles, or rolls his eyes -it's pretty bloody obvious."

Shadow narrowed his eyes, but didn't argue his point. He'd been so used to simply surviving in his time as a spy that he hadn't really let himself live -truly live. And now, here, out in the land that he had worked for his entire life, he was enjoying all that he had missed out on for fifteen years.

Truly, it was liberating.

"Alright, everyone...get ready..."

Connor sucked in a mouthful of carbon dioxide, allowing it to kindle and burn in his mouth. Jacob pawed at the ground, and Lucy jumped onto Pan's shoulder, the air around her crackling. Shadow narrowed his consciousness down to a single point, and allowed himself to be that point.

Pan opened his eyes slowly, and smiled in exhilaration. This was it -the feeling that he had missed so much as Champion; the feeling of every battle being a win or a loss. There, one misstep meant nothing; nobody could stand up to him. But now...the adrenaline was truly freeing.

"Go."

Jacob burst out of the bushes, a red-eyed half-ton metal monstrosity in his own right. The girl started; close-up, she was pale and sickly, wearing a baggy, badly-fitting plain t-shirt and shorts that didn't quite cover her scabby knees.

Pan slid off one side, and flashed his best contemptuous smile at the girl as he straightened. "I apologize, madam," he said in his best gallant-knight impression, "but I'm afraid I'm here to rob you."

Shadow had to hand it to her -while her eyes widened slightly, and her knees buckled just a tad, the girl handled herself very well. She took in a deep breath, and spoke.

"Very well."

Pan started; he had really been expecting a battle -and moreover, her voice was not at all what he had expected. It spoke of battles lost, of kings and emperors killed; of a lineage of assassins and massacre princesses that stretched back till eternity.

"Well, I'm glad you're so willing," he joked vainly, walking forwards warily. All his instincts were screaming at him to run away -the girl did not merely radiate experience and terror; she was totally unafraid, despite being outnumbered and outgunned.

"Oh, I didn't say I was willing to get robbed." The girl smiled a razor-sharp smile, and darted towards him, feet kicking up dust. Pan stumbled, falling backwards, abjectly terrified.

"Well you had better be," Jacob rumbled, rushing in-between the two and hissing at the girl. She fell back, a terrified expression on her face, and slid on the wet grass of the path, sliding in-between his legs.

"Whoa!" Pan managed, as she slid straight into him, and they both crashed down onto the ground. Before he had a chance to speak, she sprung backwards, and looked at the scene before turning backwards and running off.

"That-" Connor growled, but a hand from Pan stopped him.

"It's alright."

"But -don't you want to go after her?"

Pan shook his head; he recognized when he had been beaten. The girl could easily have stabbed him then, when he had been as helpless as a baby...but she had stopped, and ran. Not because she had to, but because she didn't consider him worthy of her attention.

"Let's go," he said, tone brokering no argument. With nary a look backwards, he and Connor trudged onto Jacob, Shadow and Lucy on their respective shoulders, and left the scuffed dirt behind them.

"Hah! Sucker!" The girl known as Wysteria punched the squalid air of the Striaton slums in victory, jumping up and down in glee. "Look at all this cash!"

She flung handful after handful of cash in the air, laughing in mad glee. She'd done it -now she was set! Wysteria smiled exultantly as she imagined the life ahead of her. No more rooting through trash cans and dumpsters for scraps of food, no more crying, hunched over with hunger. With this money she'd make herself presentable, get a job -start from scratch in a new city, one that didn't know her for who she was.

And just as she was sure that she had it made, it all came crashing down around her.

"Well, well, well," a familiar voice drawled, sending chills down her spine. She whirled around, eyes huge -and met a solid wall of resistance, one that shoved her back into the wall and sent her crashing onto the ground. "If it isn't little Wysteria..."

"Bastard..." she managed, trying to push herself off of the ground; it felt like one of her ribs was broken, and Wysteria was almost sure she'd hurt something in her right arm. Stars filled her vision in the next second as the wall stomped on her, filling her mouth with the sour taste of blood.

"What's that?" The voice was mocking, infuriating, oily and sleazy -just the way she remembered it.

"!" Wysteria shouted a word that her mother would never have let her say towards the voice, her own full of spite and hatred. She was just barely able to turn her head towards the man whom she'd hoped she'd never see again. The man who had ruined her life, who had taken everything away from her.

A second later, her head spun as the wall picked her up by the nape of her neck and slammed her into the wall of the alleyway. She cried out involuntarily from the pain, and tears came to her eyes as the enormous fist came within an inch of her face.

The king of Nimbasa's underworld lifted up a casual hand, and the wall grunted, spitting to the side before it let her go once again. Head throbbing, both with anger and pain, Wysteria got to her feet with a snarl.

"I had hoped you were dead," she spat, every syllable filled with her contempt and hate for the man who'd left her, beaten and bloody, in an alleyway one rainy night.

"Now, now..." The man threw his hood back, exposing all of his doughy, sadistic features.

A scar ran down his right cheek before it disappeared into his many chins, an old wound from a knife her mother had thrown before Satvik had ordered her killed. His ears ended in stubby ends, the result of years spent up in the cold north as a foreman. His entire face was hairless, giving him the look of a forlorn baby -a look she had come to hate in the years since that day.

"Is that any way to treat an old friend?" Satvik sneered at her, eyeing her strangely. He licked his lips, and Wysteria let out an involuntary squeak, her knees trembling as she realized what was about to happen. "You've grown into a quite a woman, haven't you?"

Satvik licked his lips again, and stretched out a hand -for what purpose she didn't know, but Wysteria cringed, slapping him across the face.

There was a moment of hushed silence, and the rain began to fall. A second later, a girl cried out in pain and suffering, and a man cackled.

Three blocks away, a Trainer -indeed, a Champion- lying slumped against the side of an alley in the slums of Striaton heard the call, and burst into action.

"Someone's in trouble," Pan said quickly, jumping onto Jacob and bringing the huge Durant around so that Connor and Shadow could climb on; Lucy had been lying in the base of the steel ant's neck, asleep.

"You don't have to go," Shadow said, knowing it was useless.

Pan didn't grace the statement with a response; instead, he merely squeezed Jacob slightly with his knees -and they were off.

Wysteria was sobbing, thrashing, doing everything she could to resist Satvik's advances -but she knew that, in the end, she would have to give in. The human wall was holding her, laughing as Satvik tugged and pulled at the folds of her cloak -and eventually, her protests quieted. Satvik cried out in an inhuman, guttural roar of triumph -and a cold voice intervened.

"That's enough."

Pan was angry.

No, more than that, he was disgusted -both with himself and the state that Unova had fallen into. He'd always known, deep down, that he hadn't been a good Champion. He wasn't a political mastermind; he was an idol. Through his many exploits and ridiculous will to live, he'd pulled off so many 'miracles', as they called it, Pan had nearly become a deity to his people -the people of Hoenn.

And so they had followed him, confident that whatever he did was right -after all, how could it not be, when he was the man who had single-handedly defeated armies? They'd called him Plainswalker Pan, the God of Victory -so many names, so many titles that he didn't deserve.

In reality, he'd left the running of the land up to Wallace and the rest of the League, and charged into battle time and time again. In truth, he had became a Pokemon Trainer not for justice, or because he had to -he'd done it for the thrill. And when he'd become undefeatable in single combat, he'd taken on dozens, then hundreds of his enemies at a time.

They thought he'd done it because he was a hero, because he was brave and selfless. And every time he'd been accosted by reporters, asking him if he didn't fear for his safety, he'd smiled mechanically and said what he'd been told to say. That he was doing what was right, trying to bring the war to a quick end.

But behind it all, he'd been in agony. How could he have been a leader if he'd never once attempted to make the lives of his people better, if he'd never once talked to one of his so-called 'subjects'? Pan had charged into battle recklessly -oh sure, he had made sure his Pokemon were safe- without a thought of what would happen to his people if he was dead, of the chaos he would create.

So shouldn't he be feeling bad now -now that he'd abandoned Hoenn to travel to a new, strange land? He'd pressed himself during the hour or so that he'd wandered the streets of Striaton after realizing that his wallet -with his Trainer ID and money- had been stolen, contemplating his decision to betray his former region. After all, it was inevitable that he'd have to fight against soldiers from Hoenn if he wanted to take up the post of Champion.

...

Was that how he thought of them now? 'Soldiers'? Not people with families and lives and interests and hates, but soldiers? Mere numbers to be factored into his logarithm of success? What had this place -with its corruption and deceit and fighting for his life- done to him?

And that was what it came down to...the first occasion where he'd had reason to doubt his decision in conquering Unova. Not something that reminded him of Hoenn, or the life he had left behind -but the fundamental flaws in it.

Oh, Hoenn wasn't perfect -he knew that much easily. There had been strife, bullying; all the marks of a successful first-region society, but not the scars that were so boldly draped over Unova. He had been in the damn place for all of two days and he'd already witnessed a case of abuse, systematic rape, assassination, drug abuse, mugging -and now he was coming face to face with a _mob boss_?!

It was not tackling these problems that gave him such cause to go back on his word -rather, it was fixing them.

Shadow, sensing his troubles, laughed mentally as they faced off against the mob boss, his bouncer, and some girl who looked vaguely familiar.

"That's the least of your worries."

Pan rolled his eyes; Shadow had no idea what he was going through. How could he?

"And who are you, eh?" The mob boss asked with a sneer; clearly he didn't think very much of Pan's ability to fight.

He narrowed his eyes. "I am Pan H. Gage, Champion of Hoenn and Kanto," he announced dramatically, watching the man's eyes widen in panic.

Champions were supposed to be embodiments of the League, theoretically above and beyond the law, Trainers of obscene skill who answered to no-one but themselves. At a word, Pan could have had the man executed -so by all rights, the man should have been groveling at his feet.

"Oh, good one," Shadow drawled.

"Yeah, and I'm motherflippin' Arceus Christ." The man -Satvik, had the girl called him?- spit, sneering. "You'll step away if you know what's good for you."

Pan threw off his shock and dismounted, leaving Jacob at ease as he walked forward.

"Are you sure...?" Jacob asked. After all, he could easily snap both men in half without a second thought, and putting Pan in any unnecessary risk was just flat-out stupid.

"Yes," Pan muttered, taking note of the confused look that passed over Satvik's face; clearly other humans couldn't understand whatever strange tongue he was speaking in.

"You're being a hero, Pan," Shadow drawled. Pan suppressed a sigh; Shadow clearly thought he was simply being...well, a hero.

"But if a leader can't lead, how can he expect his subjects to follow?" It was a saying that he'd become quite fond of as he'd lead charge after charge into enemy lines back in Hoenn, and he still believed in it. It was the entire reason behind the existence of the League system; the strong conquered, and the weak survived.

He could see the other man about at his limit, and spared him the awkwardness.

"If you don't step away, I'm afraid I'll have to hurt you," he said lightly -and he wasn't exaggerating. He was sure the bruiser was reasonably good at his job, but Pan had been training in martial arts ever since he had realized that he wasn't safe in Hoenn.

"Why you little..." He smirked at the obvious anger on Satvik's face. "Hearak, Kill him!"

Hearak the bruiser exploded into action, leaping forward with his hands outstretched. When he realized that Pan wasn't going to be scared by shows of strength, Hearak threw an underhand punch.

Pan dodged, going under and to the side of the punch and placing a few jabs into the bruiser's gut, hardly making him stagger. It was a classic brawl; Hearak had strength and stamina on his side, while Pan had skill and swiftness.

The bruiser roared, more in frustration than pain, and began to lumber backwards, sweeping at the area in front of him as he did. Pan simply leaped over and kicked Hearak in the side -a move that would have felled anyone else, but hardly slowed the giant of a man.

Shadow frowned. Pan wasn't some idealistic fool with a dream of saving the world; he would have known that there was simply no way he could win the battle. His blows were barely fazing the doughy-faced man's bodyguard, and his dodges were taking their toll.

So then...why? Shadow frowned, and whispered his thoughts to Connor -just as Pan tripped while leaping backwards, falling flat on his back. The fallen Trainer attempted to push himself off of the ground -in vain, it turned out. His arms collapsed under him, tired from the force of a dozen punches against what was basically a sack of sand.

Satvik sneered. "Don't kill him," he growled. "I wanna see how much his body's worth on the black market."

Hearak snorted but did as he was told, looming over the Trainer and smacking him on the side of the head. Pan's eyes widened before rolling back into his head -and his body slumped.

"Now..." Satvik laughed cruelly as he turned back to his victim. "Where were-"

Shadow laughed; the girl had run off. Not the bravest course of action, certainly -but the smartest one. Satvik, hearing the unmistakable tones of laughter, whirled around in fury, eyes blazing.

"You'll make a nice penny on the black market..." The crime boss snapped his fingers impatiently at Hearak, who was simply standing over Pan. "'Sack 'em."

The bodyguard nodded, pulling a sack out of his ill-fitting coat. He stepped forward, then looked at Jacob, frowned, looked back at the sack, and looked to his master imploringly.

Satvik rolled his eyes, sighing. "Fine, leave the Durant. I doubt you could kill it -I'll send some of the boys back later to get it."

Hearak nodded, stepping back towards the Pokemon.

"Uh, don't they realize that we're going to attack?" Shadow whispered to Lucy.

The Joltik shrugged. "I don't know -but we should, shouldn't we?"

Rather than replying, Connor merely sucked air into his cheeks, lighting it with the ember that eternally burned within his body. Lucy concentrated, summoning small sparks in the air around her, and Shadow smirked, covering Pan with an Illusion.

Hearak stopped, confused, and scratched his head with one stubby finger. Satvik, who had been looking out into the distance, as if hoping to see Wysteria, turned around with a sigh ready -just as Jacob leaped forward.

The Durant reared up on its hind four legs, slamming its iron-shod feet into Hearak's body before coming back down on top of the giant bruiser, felling him instantly.

There was silence for a second, and Connor sighed, allowing the fire in his cheeks to bathe the concrete of the alleyway. "Why do we even bother fighting when we've got a two-ton iron ant on our side who can outrun a damn Rapidash?"

Shadow thought for a second, then smiled devilishly at the sight of Satvik, who hadn't moved, presumably paralyzed in shock. "Because he can't do this," the small Zorua said for dramatic effect, before casting the Illusion of a fiery red dragon in front of them.

Satvik gave a little moan before swaying, and fell onto the concrete.

"Show-off," Connor muttered, crossing his arms over his chest and casting his eyes off to the side -where he saw Pan, still unconscious.

Lucy, following the movement of his eyes, saw the same thing, and shrieked. "Pan!"

She'd never seen an unconscious human before, and so assumed Pan was dead. The resulting flow of emotion shocked the water droplets around Pan, and he was momentarily lifted off his feet by the resulting shockwave. A second later, she stopped in confusion, and Pan fell back onto the concrete, now conscious.

"Well a fat lot of good you did," Jacob grumbled, making his way over to Pan, the others at his heels. The former Champion of Kanto and Hoenn got up weakly, rubbing the side of his head, where a massive purple bruise had formed, and groaned.

"Why exactly did you try and fight him?" Shadow was curious; he'd assumed that Pan had some sort of master plan -but now all signs were pointing in the opposite direction.

Pan didn't answer immediately, instead lifted his arms up and gazing at them in abject horror. "My arms!"

"They are pretty disgusting," Connor said jokingly, but the humor was lost on the rest of his group.

Pan shot a dirty look at the Charmander, who shrugged, before letting his arms fall back to his side and getting up, examining his legs as well.

"Um...Pan, are you alright?" Lucy asked, still not fully understanding what had happened. Had she just shocked Pan back to life?

The Trainer shook his head with a sigh. "No, I'm not."

"So you thought your arms had more muscle than they really did," Jacob mused, shaking his head. "You've got to remember that this isn't your original body; it will have some flaws."

Pan sighed, tying the final knot on the rope that bound Hearak's legs together. "It just...kinda comes a shock..."

He, Jacob and Connor had found some tattered rope in a dumpster and were binding the mob boss and his bodyguard. Shadow, meanwhile, was explaining the intricacies of life to Lucy, who, having previously been a nine-year-old -admittedly a scientific prodigy, but a nine-year-old nonetheless- had to be brought up to snuff before they set out through the slums.

"Yeah, well imagine waking up and finding yourself four feet tall with a penchant for setting stuff on fire," Connor replied sarcastically.

They could have -and would have- gone on in this vein forever, had Wysteria not shown up.

Pan looked surreptitiously at the girl sitting behind him, chatting with Shadow about some smuggler the two of them both knew. She'd simply dropped into the middle of their conversation a few minutes ago, introducing herself as Wysteria, and now here he was, letting her lead them to a place where they could get some food and rest.

What was he thinking?!

"You know, if I wasn't so sure that it was because she's stolen your wallet, I would have guessed that you only let her come with us because you think she's attractive," Shadow's mental voice came.

"Shut up," he replied through gritted teeth.

"Excuse me?" Wysteria asked, peeking over his shoulder with an affronted look on her face. She was rather pretty, Pan had to admit; apparently she'd simply made herself look repulsive so as to not attract unwanted attention -though the makeup hadn't done much good in the pouring rain. Not in a curvy sense, or in a tall, long-haired sense; no, rather it was her silvery hair and mischievous eyes, hinting of so much more than you could-

"Tooooold you," Shadow snickered.

"SHUT UP!" He roared, feeling just the slightest twinge of guilt as Wysteria leaned back, a hurt look on her face, along with a savage sense of satisfaction. He pushed his hat down low, pretending as though it was just to protect him from the rain, not bothering to correct the girl.

"What was that about?" He heard her ask, unable to stop himself from eavesdropping.

"Oh, he's just a little bit strange in the head, if you get what I mean," Shadow drawled much louder than was necessary. "He was dropped a lot on the head as a baby, and he's been seeing things ever since; just now, he even said you were unbelievably ugly!"

Pan's eye began to twitch in the effort of restraining himself from leaning back and grabbing Shadow by the nape of his furry little neck. Just stay calm, he told himself. He's just trying to get you riled up...

"Really?" Wysteria sounded bemused; she knew, of course, that she was attractive to men -she'd used it to her advantage before. "How...interesting."

"Yeah, the poor boy's head over heels for you," Shadow said in mock sympathy.

That was it- the last straw.

~~~

Mark Anuyit frowned in displeasure, swiveling around in his expensive leather-back office chair and staring daggers at the nervous young secretary that had brought the news to him. "What do you mean...the mission failed?"

The secretary gulped before continuing with her story. "Well, sir, ah, um, that is...Lord Ragnish and Rangers Trisha and Vellum were, er, defeated by a young boy with a Charmander, Joltik, Salamence, and Durant...er, sir."

Anuyit swore briefly under his breath; Durants were extremely powerful, even with low G's (Growth levels, remember?) -and as such they tended to stay to themselves. If the terrorists had gotten a hold of one, they must have gotten a hold of an entire nest...and moreover, a Salamence?!

Who was he dealing with?!

"There's more, sir," the secretary said timidly.

"Well, get on with it," he growled.

"Er...allegedly, the terrorist proclaimed himself to be, and I quote, "just a regular Trainer who made a slip-up"..."

Anuyit raised his eyebrows. Not a terrorist? Was that possible?

"Contact Fell, now," he snarled. "Tell him he's to be out for Trainers with Durants; ask him to tell the boy to come here as soon as he can. Actually, cancel that; get me on the next boat to Striaton!"

His secretary, who had been frantically scribbling thus far, straightened up, saluting. "Yes, sir!" She walked out, arms stiffly at her side.

Anuyit picked up a remote control and shut the double doors to his office, rubbing his forehead as he leaned back and swiveled around, watching the sun set. If he could get this strange new Trainer to work for him, they might finally be able to bring the majority of the terrorist groups to justice...it was a long shot, but long enough that it might work.

With a sigh, he got up and began to prepare to move out.

~~~

Lucy was tired. Very tired; the stress of the past day had just caught up to her, and she was looking forward to sleeping on their journey, getting to where Wysteria was taking them, and then sleeping some more. Understandable, really; just a few hours ago she'd had to guide dozens of tired and scared Pokemon out of a forest with some sort of demonic insect in it.

So when she was rudely awoken by the sound of Pan shouting at Shadow and Wysteria, tossing around not-so-nice words, and the other two shouting back, she lost her 'poor-cute-little-girl' demeanor.

"Would all of you just shut up and stop bickering like two-year-olds?!" Lucy demanded, sending a few bolts of electricity at the three to emphasize her message.

"Well Shadow's being annoying-" Pan said petulantly.

"Pan's just being unreasonable-" Shadow replied coolly.

"I'm not trying to seduce anybody!" Wysteria protested hotly.

And the three of them fell right back to arguing. Lucy's many eyelids began to twitch, and she scurried over to Jacob, crawling over a snoring Connor before whispering into his ear.

"You sure?" Jacob asked, raising an eyebrow. Lucy knew he would do anything for her -she wasn't sure why, though- and though she didn't like taking advantage of people, she also didn't like arguments.

She nodded quickly, and took hold of one of Jacob's antennae. In the next instant, he reared back, dumping Shadow, Wysteria, and Pan unceremoniously into the dirt; Connor, somehow, managed to stay on, still snoring.

"What was that for?" Pan demanded.

"I'd imagine Lucy wanted to break up our argument," Shadow stated shrewdly.

Wysteria said nothing, merely getting up and dusting her clothes off, but Lucy could tell she wasn't pleased with her. She felt a twinge of guilt; and she'd been starting to like the thief-girl as well, too; she and Pan would have made a wonderful couple.

"Actually, I'd think it was because we're at our destination." Wysteria pointed forward, and they all turned to look. "That is where we'll be staying until you" -meaning Pan- "challenge the Gym. The Trainer's School."


End file.
